How to Remove Locked Podcasts?

[ACK_215]

Plan

Premium

Country

US of A

Device

Samsung S23

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

NYT's "The Daily" has a thing for paid premium podcasts that are locked. I can not figure out how to delete these locked podcasts from "Your Library" on my phone, there's no remove or marked as finished option and it can't be done under The Daily's manage tab. I have 50-100 of these things and I have to wade through all of them to get to content I want to listen to, how do you delete them other than ditching The Daily?

[Yordan]

Hi there, @ACK_215,

Welcome to the Spotify Community!

I'm afraid this hasn't been implemented as an option yet. We’re regularly looking for opportunities to enhance the user experience for everyone though, so your feedback is greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so you don't miss out on any updates.

Cheers 🤘

[ACK_215]

I did my solution and "UNFOLLOWED" The Daily, however, the 50-100 locked podcasts are still on my phone and still can't be deleted. Next possible solution to consider... cancel Spotify subscription and use another app.

[Maria]

Hey @ACK_215,

Thanks for following up!

Just to confirm, does the podcast itself still appear in Your Library after unfollowing it, or are the paid episodes still displayed in a different section of the app (for example New Episodes or Your Episodes)? It would be great if you could clear cache to see if you notice any difference here. Just make sure to log out from the app and back in again once it's done, as these steps should resync your account info.

Another thing which comes to mind is signing in to the Spotify app on a computer and try marking those episodes as played. You can do so by clicking the 3 dots next to an episode > Mark as finished.

Hope this helps!

[nfunspoiler]

Hey.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, I finally found out today how to do this after having like 100 locked podcasts in my downloads folder. I also have a Samsung 23.

Go into Your Episodes like normal.  If you look at a locked podcast, the (...) button doesn't work to remove them.  When you press it, it does nothing.  But you still can hold your finger down on the selected podcast (not on the (...) button, but on the entire podcast itself) and the dropdown menu will appear where you can then remove the podcast.

Took me far too long to figure this out lol.

[ACK_215]

Discovered that on a Mac, through the Spotify app, locked episodes can be individually deleted. Go to the episode, click the 3 dots for the drop down options, and get rid of that bad boy.

[ACK_215]

Found a few stray locked podcasts and your solution was spot on. Thank you

[Clrt]

Please do something about this. It is almost unbearable that they can't be removed. My entire "new episodes" feed is completely pointless because every single episode is locked. 

[Ntierno]

it would be helpful if we could mark a podcast as played on devices. Not quite sure why it has to be on pc. There should also just be an option to hide all paid content, I already pay for Spotify shouldn’t have to see the stuff I don’t have access to because I don’t want to pay for another subscription too 

[kaylaisidar]

This just rolled out for me and it's very annoying. Why does bonus content show up in my normal feed? I'm frustrated. I've had Spotify premium for over a decade and suddenly the podcast feed, which is already a little annoying to begin with, is super cluttered with episodes I can't watch. What do you mean there's no feature to sort them out yet? It was added in on purpose, can't it be removed on purpose? Just let me filter out locked episodes

[Yordan]

Hey folks,

We appreciate the feedback on this, as it may ultimately end up paving the way for our broader user experience. Thanks for sharing it here.

In the meantime, you can try the following workaround to hide individual items from New Episodes / Your Episodes:

1. For New Episodes: save the episode to Your Episodes first.
2. Navigate to Your Episodes on the desktop app.
3. Right-click on the episode and select 'Mark as finished'. The episode should then disappear from New Episodes and Your Episodes (for the latter you need to set the 'Remove played episodes' option to 'After playing' first via the mobile app).

I also found a live idea on the topic which you may find interesting - feel free to check it out and show your support.

The Community is just a post away if there's anything you need assistance with.