Adding outside podcasts into iTunes podcasts?

[cag8f]

I am using iTunes 11. I have downloaded podcasts outside of itunes and would like to add them into itunes so they are categorized in a specific existing itunes podcast. How can I do this? I have tried intuitively playing around with the 'properties' of the outside podcast file in-question (e.g. categorizing it as a podcast, entering the appropriate artist, album, etc), but to no avail. I have iTunes set to keep my iTunes music folder organized for me, and iTunes insists on placing this file somewhere else than the appropriate podcast folder (even though I initially copy the file into this folder).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[cjmnews]

If you want a podcast to be part of iTunes, then you should subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.

I don't have it in front of me, and with the new interface I could be wrong.
Assuming you have View->Show Menu Bar checked.
Click on Podcasts, then Click on Advanced in the Menu, Choose Subscribe to Podcast.
Now paste the URL for the RSS feed for that podcast into the box and click OK.

The Podcast should show up as a subscription and the recent episodes should appear there too.
Get the episode you want, set up your subscription to check daily or weekly, etc.

If you want to force an imported file to be a podcast you can find it in your library and change the Media Kind to Podcast. Though I don't know what this would do as far as subscriptions go. This will allow the imported file to be captured in Podcast based smart playlists.

I think the subscription method is best.

[Sparkee]

In iTunes 11 the Advance menu was dropped, the "Subscribe to Podcast" command is now in the File menu.

[cag8f]

Thanks for the replies.

I understand that the best method of having iTunes organize podcasts is to download the podcast via iTunes. However not all podcasts are available through iTunes. I am downloading podcasts from a third party site. They are sitting on my computer as individual audio files, and I can import and listen to them in iTunes. But when I do so, iTunes thinks they are individual song tracks, and tries to categorize them thusly. I have tried changing the 'genre' of the audio file to 'podcast,' but that does not seem to work.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Savannah]

Send apple feedback and hopefully they'll fix it.

[cjmnews]

As described above you can subscribe to third party podcasts through iTunes. I have done it off and on for years.

It looks like changing the Media Kind does not work. In v11, the change does not stick. Changing the Genre does nothing for changing the type of media, so that will not help you.

You could use a playlist and Genre if you wanted to at least manage these files separately.

[cag8f]

I didn't know you could subscribe to podcasts outside of iTunes, so that is helpful.

As a direct follow up to my issue though, I was pointed to an iTunes for Mac forum post ("iTunes 10.6.3: Manually added podcasts (with same settings) sort into different groups") that sounds like it walks you through the process for iTunes 10.6. It is relatively involved and comprehensive, so I have not had the time to test it yet.

[cjmnews]

In days past, I have set up my own RSS feed to load podcasts that I had as files into iTunes.
To do that, you have to have write access to a web server somewhere, even if it is just your computer hosting the feed.