AntennaPod
automatic download and inbox functionality conflict
Checklist
- [X] I have used the search function for open and closed issues to see if someone else has already submitted the same bug report.
- [X] I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
- [X] If the bug only to occurs with a certain podcast, I will include the URL of that podcast.
App version
2.7.1
Where did you get the app from
F-Droid
Android version
11
Device model
No response
First occurred
No response
Steps to reproduce
- Set a podcast to auto-download
- Refresh when new episodes appear
- Watch the inbox. New episodes will appear there, then vanish when automatic download completes.
Expected behaviour
Automatic downloading should not remove items from the inbox.
Current behaviour
Automatic downloads remove episodes from the inbox.
This somewhat made sense in the old system where it was just a cosmetic "new" flag, but it conflicts with the inbox workflow now.
Logs
No response
That is by design. The inbox is meant as a place to decide whether you are interested in the episode or not. When you enable automatic download, you already decided that you are interested in all episodes. Once they are downloaded, there is nothing to decide anymore. The idea is that anything that has been interacted with in some way is removed from the inbox.
@ByteHamster That is interesting, it's very different from I use or perceived the auto download feature.
I'm totally with you that the current behavior makes sense if you download a very narrow set of episodes and have the "automatically add downloads to queue" toggle enabled as you mentioned. However my personal use case for automatic downloads is to avoid data usage on my plan (which is only 1GB/mo) and listen in areas of limited connectivity. So a broad set of episodes will download overnight, then I'll decide what I want to listen to on the road. This is how I'm used to say the Youtube Music automatic download feature working too.
So for me the decision is not "do I download this" but "do I add this to my queue or let it be deleted". Being able to have auto downloads in the inbox would allow me to make that decision using the nice new inbox interface, which is what I was hoping for and why I thought this was just an oversight.
If you're open to having this sort of workflow in the app I'm happy to open a feature request instead.
I totally agree with @NotAFile This way the Inbox feature is just useless for me.
Contrary to @NotAFile , this is how I use the Inbox:
I have a large-ish amount of podcasts set to auto-download (and auto-enque), because I usually want to list to all its episodes. But I also have a handful of podcasts not set to auto-download, because I only care about some episodes, and I select what to do with each new episode in the Inbox.
I assume that's the intended use-case?
If now the change as suggested here would be made, with auto-downloaded episodes remaining in the inbox, that would make the inbox useless for me.
I have a large-ish amount of podcasts set to auto-download (and auto-enque), because I usually want to list to all its episodes. But I also have a handful of podcasts not set to auto-download, because I only care about some episodes, and I select what to do with each new episode in the Inbox.
I assume that's the intended use-case?
Yes, this is exactly how the inbox was designed.
A problem I see with the approach of @NotAFile is that it would require more than just keeping the episodes in the inbox. The next request would be a swipe action like "remove from inbox, delete, and remove from queue". For this use-case, where you simply download all episodes without any filtering, you can also just ignore/hide the inbox screen and use the queue to remove downloads that you are not actually interested in. The idea of the inbox is to do the filtering before it gets downloaded (either before manual download or before auto-download, depending on your settings).
Was about to post a new issue but this is surprising to still be a problem.
Where is the "automatically add downloads to queue" toggle?
EDIT: how come is it under "playback" and not "downloads"? And why does the search function can not find it
I came searching for this issue, not understanding why episodes were going directly to my queue.
Here would be my ideal settings: episodes go first to inbox. When added to queue, they are automatically downloaded. Some podcasts can be set to go straight to downloads/queue. However, I don't think there's a way to achieve this given the current settings.
This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:
https://forum.antennapod.org/t/new-podcasts-not-appearing-in-inbox/4317/12
