Podcast Filter Not Remembering "Unplayed" Selection (defaults to "all episodes")

[squidgewinkle]

Plan

Premium

Country

The Netherlands

Device

Samsung Galaxy s10e

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I've selected "unplayed" under the sort menu of a podcast I listen to, and whenever I leave navigate away from the podcast and then back again it has reset to "all episodes". This is really frustrating, as I listen to most podcasts from oldest to newest... and so I need to constantly click sort by unplayed again, every time I go back into that podcast.

I would rather not do a clean install of Spotify, as I've had to do it so many times already. Is this a known bug and can it be fixed?

Thank you

[Alex]

Hey @squidgewinkle,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community!

This is expected behavior. Not all filtering and sorting options are remembered when you navigate away from the said menu or restart the app.

We don't have official news on whether this will be changed in future updates.

Hope this info helps. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[squidgewinkle]

Thanks for the answer. I assumed it was a bug as it's not at all functional. Why would I want to see episodes I've already listened to? I really hope you'll pass on this feedback as I'm about to start using another app, as this is terrible design

[dmac-ie]

all filtering and sorting options should be remembered when you navigate away from the said menu. Can you please explore further if this function is going to be added. Such a big omission! Frustrating to use Spotify podcasts like this. Thanks 

[squidgewinkle]

Completely agree. This is a huge fundamental flaw and frankly I can't believe the response from Spotify is "this is normal behaviour and we have no plans to change it currently".
I will be staying away from the podcast section of Spotify as they clearly don't care about the functionality of it...

[dmac-ie]

I think we need to find an active Spotify Idea Exchange that reflects this idea, and try get votes to it.
See if you can find this idea on here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ideas/ct-p/newideas 
and we can work to get it voted up/active. New ideas are closed 😞

Let me know if you find one that is active.

Thanks.

[dmac-ie]

Hi @squidgewinkle,

I managed to create a new Idea Exchange, based on your help ticket. I just amended it a little for an idea exchange.

Lets upvote 🙂

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Idea-Submissions/Android-Podcasts-Podcast-quot-Sort-quot-Not-Rememb...

[squidgewinkle]

Great stuff mate, I've upvoted that one.
Let's hope they start to listen and fix this flaw 🙂

[jlarsp]

This is just one of the extremely annoying things about podcasts on Spotify (sadly, I can't find another app that is any better; can it really be this hard? I mean, do any of the programmers actually ever use the app for its intended purpose?) Why on earth do you have to select sort by unplayed every single time you go to a specific podcast? It makes utterly no sense. Give the user some basic control, please!

[arielPHchiang]

This bugs me so much. It’s frustrating that they don’t stay at unplayed.

[TheKaptone]

Look to me like this is still and issue on the podcast front. Why would i want to see a list of the podcasts that i have already heard.

I will be sticking with Pocket Casts for the foreseeable future

[tattownsend]

Very frustrating. Don’t understand why I want to see previously finished podcasts by default. Furthermore if playing automatically it means previously played podcasts re-play. This “expected behaviour” is very buggy. 

[Ditaj088]

Same happens to me with Spotify. I was surprised by this problem since I thought Spotify was one of the top podcast players. I've never had this problem on podbeam and it's organized well. 

[Jeggings]

Ah, so glad to have found this thread. I've been so annoyed by this feature (or rather, the lack thereof) as I go through quite a lot of podcast shows daily, but I thought maybe it was just a bug with my phone as it's hard to imagine this being undetected and/or difficult to work out.

@tattownsend , YES! It's so frustrating to have a previously played episode being queued in autoplay, esp when you're driving, working out, or cooking - all of which are instances where I enjoy a podcast show or two. 

I'm using Spotify instead of Apple Podcasts because the fast-fowarding feature works more intuitively when using my Airpods. But I'm seriously considering moving elsewhere - or discontinuing my Premium subscription at least. Sigh. 

[Ollie21]

This is really annoying. I always have to filter to “unplayed” and “oldest to newest”. Both of which reset every time I leave the podcast.

[ScottDavid]

This really drives me insane! 😂 I was looking for a fix, instead I found out that everyone else is crying with me. 🫠 Let’s hope they fix this. 

[Drix]

I was sure this was a bug, and I'm curious as to why this is expected behavior. Are there any use cases where this would be the preferred behavior? Please fix this, its horribly bad design.

[squidgewinkle]

It seems they don't care about the podcast function of Spotify, it's as simple as that. It's an afterthought. Otherwise this fundamental function would exist. I guess they don't have the money to develop it 😂
I expect so much more from Spotify, after all the rest of the app is fantastic. It's like going to a ball wearing a stunning outfit... with crocs

[jlarsp]

Of course the odd thing is that some podcasters (Joe Rogan anyone) they pay huge amounts of money too, while musicians get fractions of a penny. You'd think they would want the podcast part of the app to work as well as the music part.

[yahenda]

I too find this to be a bug and not a feature. As a feature, it provides no useful advantage to the general podcast listening experience. As a bug, it creates frustration in the podcast listening experience. The funny thing is that, when I switched to Spotify Podcasts earlier this year, neither of the two filtering/sorting options (FILTER by All/Unplayed/Downloaded and SORT by oldest/newest) retained their settings after leaving the podcast episodes page… but the Spotify app was recently updated so that now it retains the SORT by setting, but not the FILTER by setting ?!? Why would you update it to retain the one setting but not the other? 

@jlarsp If you are still wondering if there is a better app, there most definitely is… it’s called RSS RADIO. It’s completely customizable, configurable, and automatable. I loved it and have used it for years. I’ve only switched to Spotify for exactly ONE reason… compatibility with Google Home. If you want voice interaction with a podcast service within Google Home, your only two options are: Google Podcasts (Garbage. Barf emoji. You get the idea) and Spotify.

Spotify is an excellent music listening interface but switching to Spotify Podcasts feels like I’ve abandoned my true love in order to marry the wicked daughter of my father’s rival in order to bring piece to the kingdom… and she’s wearing crocs.