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I was wondering if anyone knew a command line 'command' I could use in a cron to force the iTunes podcast updater to run overnight. I'm running 10.6

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2 Answers 2

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You can use the following AppleScript to ask iTunes to update all your podcast feeds:

tell application "iTunes"
    updateAllPodcasts
end tell

This AppleScript can be performed from the command line through osascript:

osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to updateAllPodcasts'

You can use a range of tools to schedule your AppleScript to run each night. One option is to run the AppleScript as part of an iCal event: How to Use iCal to Run an AppleScript

Alternatively, you can create a launchd job ticket and place it in your ~/Library/LaunchAgents folder.

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  • this is what I found online and have been getting an error which deals with 64 bit arch. I found a solution though: arch -i386 osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to updateAllPodcasts' Thanks for the help! Cron works just fine for me =)
    – wajiw
    Commented May 18, 2011 at 15:18
  • Is it possible to run this in "faceless mode", i.e. without having to open iTunes and instead perform the task in the background?
    – Henrik
    Commented Nov 19, 2012 at 14:30
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I have a couple scripts wrapped in an automator that does all of the updating for me.

The first script makes sure that podcasts that haven't been listened to in a while aren't disabled. The second script then updates the podcasts.

(*
"Update Expired Podcasts" for iTunes
written by Doug Adams
[email protected]

v1.0 aug 13, 2008
-- compatible with iTunes 7.7.1

v1.0 feb 15, 2007
-- initial release

Get more free AppleScripts and info on writing your own
at Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes
http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Get a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301, USA.

or visit http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

*)


tell application "iTunes"
    set podcast_playlist to some playlist whose special kind is Podcasts

    -- filter multiple names
    set each_podcast to {}
    set each_podcast to my get_discrete_list_of(get album of every track of podcast_playlist)

    -- update the podcasts
    if each_podcast is not {} then
        repeat with this_podcast in each_podcast
            set the_podcast to (some track of podcast_playlist whose album contains this_podcast)
            if (get class of the_podcast) is list then set the_podcast to item 1 of the_podcast
            updatePodcast the_podcast
        end repeat
    end if

end tell


to get_discrete_list_of(list1)
    script a
        property list1ref : list1
    end script

    set list2 to {}
    script b
        property list2ref : list2
    end script

    repeat with i from 1 to length of list1
        set this_item to item i of a's list1ref
        considering case
            if this_item is not "" and this_item is not in b's list2ref then set end of list2 to this_item
        end considering
    end repeat

    return b's list2ref

end get_discrete_list_of

Update podcasts:

tell application "iTunes" to updateAllPodcasts

No, I wasn't the originator of the scripts, but I forgot the original source URL.

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  • thanks for the help but I figured out a solution =)
    – wajiw
    Commented May 18, 2011 at 15:19

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