What are the criteria for "Delete downloaded episodes" to work?

[Sam_AU]

Server Version#: 1.40.1.8227
Player Version#: iOS - 8.33

Hi,

What are the criteria for the iOS player to delete episodes for after “1 day” and “1 week” ?

I download all episodes and set it to delete after “1 day”, but they’re never deleted.

• The episode(s) in question are watched.
• The entire season is watched
• The entire series itself is watched.

Yet, after a few weeks I check and they’re still downloaded and still there. I have to delete them manually.

It does not look like this (deleting automatically) is working at all, but I cannot confirm since there’s no criteria anywhere that says what it must match against to trigger the media deletion.

Note this can be reproduced on several older versions of Server & player, on different iOS models (15 Pro Max, 14 Pro Max, 10 XS Max) over the last few years - i.e., not a new issue.

Thanks.

[tom80H]

Where exactly did you find an option to automatically delete download items?

Or are you by chance talking about the keep/delete options available for recorded episodes (available when setting up a recording or in the advanced options of a show)?
https://support.plex.tv/articles/226074728-setting-up-recordings/

[Sam_AU]

Thanks @tom80H ,

Nah, on Plex on iOS, if you go to any series, and click on the Download option for the Series/Season, it’ll pop up a Download window.

In there, you can see the option to delete the downloaded episodes.

A few years back, when you had the older downloading interface, this used to work, where after you finished watching an episode, it would auto-delete it. But since moving to the current downloading interface (about .. 2 years ago?) I haven’t seen it working since. The downloaded files just stay there taking up space, long after I finished watching the episodes, or even the whole TV series or show in its entirety.

I have to manually delete them.

On another note, the way it’s written “after a day”, is confusing in itself. After literally 24 hours? since time of download (regardless of watch state)? Or after watching it (presuming this is the intent)? Or from midnight? etc..

[tom80H]

Got it… I haven’t been downloading entire shows/seasons in some time (and all my music downloads are handled within Plexamp).

The way I understand the feature, it’ll kick-in deleting episodes if you’ve set it to a number of episodes e.g., the next 5 unwatched episodes. In that example, the download job should initially download 5 episodes. Once you’ve watched 2, the Delete option determines how long the watched ones remain in your Downloads section.

I wonder if the Delete option could maybe be disabled/hidden while you’ve selected the option to download All. IIRC the old sync had an additional option to only download unwatched episodes… in that case, keeping the Delete option for All might still be triggered.

[Sam_AU]

Thanks! That’s a good point.

I’ll give the other option a try with “next X unwatched episodes” and see if it works there. If not, will reply here or via a new post.

As for the “Download All”, yes it would be nice to either disable the Delete for that, or to auto-delete when all the episodes have been watched (which would be preferable).

So in my example, if I finished watching season 2, then it would delete the whole of season 2. If there’s any way we can pass that as an RFE (enhancement request) that would be great. Otherwise, yea to disable it as a plan B.

[Sam_AU]

Hi @tom80H ,

I can confirm it’s working as expected when you set a number of episodes to download. I tested with “3 episodes”.

It would be good if we can have an enhancement request for it to delete the whole season after watching all episodes when we download “All episodes” for that season.