I've been trying to use git-annex with the following strategy.

• Download podcasts into the annex gpodder-downloads
• Check the podcasts into the annex using git annex add.
• Copy the podcasts over to my mp3 player in the annex usb-ariaz. This is a FAT-formatted mp3 player, so I have been using a bare repository.
• Move the podcasts to a different annex called gpodder-on-usbdisk to indicate that they have been successfully put on the mp3 player.
• chmod the files on the mp3 player to 0600 so that I can delete them from the player when I am done listening to them.

Then I go for a run or something and listen to a bunch of podcasts, deleting them after I have listened to them. When I get back, I would like to find the files that I have listened to and remove them from the annexes that are not on the mp3 player. What I have been hoping is that something like

~/gpodder-on-usbdisk $ git annex find --not --in usb-ariaz --print0 | xargs -0 git rm
~/gpodder-on-usbdisk $ git annex unused
~/gpodder-on-usbdisk $ git annex dropunused `seq X`

would work. However, it appears that git-annex find does not actually check to see that the file contents are present, but only looks at the git-annex branch of the usb-ariaz repository. Since I have not changed that with my sneaky deletions, it has no way of knowing that the files have been deleted.

Is there any way to do this properly? (And by properly, I don't mean "don't delete the files". That is really the only way I have of marking that I have listened to podcasts on this particular mp3 player.)

I tried setting the usb-ariaz repository to be untrusted, but that did not change the behavior of git annex find.