Downloading Podcasts with FeedDemon

If you're new to FeedDemon, you might not know that you can use it to download podcasts (AKA: "enclosures") and sync them with iTunes.

When an article has a podcast associated with it, a paperclip icon will appear beneath its title, as illustrated by this screen shot:

 

Clicking this icon adds the podcast to FeedStation (a free "podcatcher" that's bundled with FeedDemon), which takes care of downloading it and then copying it to iTunes:

If you're subscribed to a feed whose podcasts you always want to download, you can skip clicking the paperclip icon and tell FeedDemon to automatically download all podcasts by editing the feed's properties:

In my case, I selectively download podcasts for most feeds, but I have automatic downloading enabled for IT Conversations since I generally want to listen to every IT Conversations podcast.

FeedDemon's online help has more details on this process, including:

• How to schedule downloads to occur after a specific time (such as when you're away from your computer)
• How to copy podcasts to Windows Media Player rather than iTunes
• How FeedDemon's "safe list" protects against downloading executable files

Bonus Tip: You can drag-and-drop any hyperlink onto FeedStation to add it to the download queue.  This works not only with hyperlinks inside of FeedDemon, but also those in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Comments

[Jess]

Nice timing! This week I investigated using FeedStation for podcasts instead of iTunes. I have to say though, I don't get it. I mean, I get the technical implementation, but I don't get normal usage. Having the information from the feed item seperate from the enclosure just doesn't make sense to me. When I open FeedStation, I have no context for the exclosure other than the file name - if it happens to be descriptive at all. FeedStation turns into "tuna surprise" after awhile. I *want* to use FeedStation, but it just doesn't make sense for me so far.

[Nick Bradbury]

@Jess: I guess it depends on how you want to listen to your podcasts. If you want to listen to them as soon as you download them, then you can skip FeedStation entirely and simply click the "Open" link next to the paperclip icon. That will start playing the podcast right away.

But if you want to listen to them on your iPod when you're away from your desktop, then having FeedStation download and sync them is pretty handy. Although the specific article won't appear in the iPod playlist, the name of the podcast's feed (or author) will be shown.

[Kris]

I've tried a bunch of podcast receivers and FeedDemon is the one I've stuck with. Couple things, I wish there was an option to not have FeedStation a separate program. Its not a big deal and I can see why it is a separate program, but I usually open FeedDemon, download my podcasts and close it. Also, I wish there was a way to either append a string to a podcast's title and/or modify the ID3 tag on the fly, so its easier to organize on my player. Right now, I have them sync to a folder on my Sansa c200, but the file names can be cryptic. Also, I use an ID3 tag editor to manually rename all the genre's to 'podcast', so I can find them on my player. Not perfect, but it works.

Some little things, it would be nice to have a portable version of FeedDemon, so I can run it from my player on any computer. Also, a way to auto-detect my player, or use relative file paths, would be nice, so I can download podcasts from any computer.

Just some suggestions, not a deal breaker or anything. IMHO, FeedDemon is the best program, I found, for downloading and syncing podcasts.