[Desktop][Podcasts] Sort by Unplayed/Recently Updated

[chublord]

Currently, the only way to listen to unplayed podcasts on desktop is to open a phone and check the feed there, or check every podcast individually for new content. That's 100% unacceptable, and has been for years.

Give us a podcast view that we can sort / filter by unplayed episodes or recent uploads. If you want to be the industry leader in streaming, you can't ignore table-stakes functionality because of "100 kudos" horsesh*t.

[Jamm_]

This is such a quick fix. The web player has the ability to sort podcasts by name/date added already and the podcast episodes already have the date uploaded. It just needs an option to sort by the date of the most recent episode. 

[rnadams2]

Just adding my voice to this. We had the option to filter out episodes that had been listened to already, but now it's gone. Please bring it back! I've also noticed that if I pause in the middle of an episode, listen to something else, then return, Spotify no longer remembers where I left off.

I'm not sure why the decision was made to remove these two features, but if you restore what you had all will be perfect.

[Nonlineartime]

Voted for this one.

I am also driven mad by the fact the desktop app and phone app don't accurately represent which episodes have been played in one format vs. the other. Isn't this information on the server??? Do different servers talk to the phone app than the desktop one? I thought the whole point of having a login system was so that we could have a seamless experience across formats. That's not happening.

A related issue driven by this failure to allow a manual "mark as played:" I am also driven mad that it won't play episodes in the order they were issued unless you sort descending by date and then you have to scroll through potentially hundreds of earlier episodes to get to the ones you haven't listened to yet. If you forget to sort descending by date and just start an episode, the stupid thing will subsequently play the previous episode, at which point the designation showing the episode as "played" is reset and what little indication I had that I had already listened to that episode is gone.

I never had another podcast app, but I'm really thinking about canceling my spotify family plan. These forums let me know I joined the wrong podcast ecosystem for basic functionality.

[jnebo]

I'm a Google Music refugee. I loved their player, and the podcasting was superb. Even their new dedicated podcast app is really well done. But I was on the family plan, and when they forced everything over to YouTube Music, guess what happened? My kids could no longer use it, because YouTube Music requires them to be older. I mean they can watch death, destruction and sexual innuendo on broadcast TV all the time, but apparently somehow hearing a song might send them right over the edge.

Not to mention the absurd dumpster fire that is YouTube Music - it's interface and features are so bad to be thought comical. I remember finding that for each artist their "most played" songs were utterly bizarre compared to the Spotify's list. And then sometimes, despite settings being correct, I got music from a video instead of the original soundtrack. 

In the end, recently there was a post that Spotify is completely re-doing their desktop player - recognizing the shortcomings. There's no timeline, so let's hope that it's sometime soon.

Perhaps I'm missing it, but the lack of transparency in roadmaps and features I think is part of what drives the frustration for the community. May I suggest here:

https://engineering.atspotify.com/2021/04/07/building-the-future-of-our-desktop-apps/

[Maarthy]

I find the phone and the desktop apps utterly horrible for both music and podcasts. The only appeal is the vast catalog of music and podcasts, but that itself is not enough when the UI is so atrocious on both platforms. I could live with the homepage that's overly cluttered with suggestions I am never gonna tap on as long as the first tab contains the latest podcast episodes.

Podcasts should have a separated icon/selection. Why do you have to go to My Library and tap on Podcast? Why can't I sort the list of podcasts alphabetically?
BUT MOST OF ALL... let me sort podcast episodes by their release dates on desktop. Saying you can use the phone and then play it on the desktop is not acceptable.

You are definitely not making the app better in any way. The UI is trash, again, on both mobile and desktop platforms.

[cursedsoups]

I was excited to notice that there's now a New Episodes section in the Home tab! Still not quite up to the mobile bar, but really helpful! I hope this isn't the end of improvements.

[Maarthy]

ciaranlohan84, good for you. I have the new design on, but it is nowhere to be found. It would resurface from time to time just to disappear again. This makes no sense.

Dear Spotify UI team. The UI is bad. It needs to be modular. You'd be surprised how much I would reorganize everything to be more useful.

[Aiscriim90]

Am I blind or did the latest update remove the episodes view from mobile too. ARE YOU CRAZY? I have a number of beloved podcasts and want to pick which new episodes I'm going to listen to now, among those podcasts new releases. I like to build a queue with various podcasts mixed. I don't listen to one podcast at a time, they are news or commentary podcasts not audio books....!!!!!!!!!!!! BRING EPISODE VIEW BACK.

[MiriamR]

This is BASIC functionality, I'm not going through hunderds of episodes to get to the ones I haven't listened to yet. Without this option I'll be switching to other software.

[captainsharmie]

it's embarrassing to see that this issue was raised by the community in 2017 (https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Desktop-Podcasts-Let-us-view-quot-Unplayed-Podcast-Epi...) and has still not been addressed or implemented. three and a half years of wasted feedback from users. i am a couple of frustrated days from cancelling my premium membership and switching to apple podcasts, which may have issues but at least it is straightforward and i can switch between mobile and desktop with no significant differences.