Google Podcasts

Google Podcasts gains a personalized episode recommendations tab

Damien Wilde | Dec 13 2019 - 5:08 am PT

While Google Podcasts isn’t the outright best podcast player, it has slowly but steadily improved into a great option. However, it has lacked a few core features until now like episode recommendations.

It appears that podcast episode recommendations are now rolling out to Google Podcasts (via Android Police), which could help you find more tailored shows based upon your current listening habits.

When you launch Google Podcasts, from the home screen you might notice a new ‘Recommended’ tab on the far right of your Downloads tab. When you open this new section you’ll get a shortlist of podcast episodes that will refresh as Google analyzes your current listening habits.

Unlike many other podcast players that will simply suggest a particular show, these new podcast episode recommendations will suggest individual episodes which showcases just how accurately Google can work out what you may enjoy listening to.

You’re not bound by subscribing to test the waters of these new podcasts either. Which is great if you are simply interested in a particular subject matter or maybe even interviews with a particular person, band or brand.

I’ve not be able to get this new tab to appear on a Pixel 4 XL or Pixel 3a XL, which means it’s likely a server-side update rather than something coming in a new app build. That does mean you might be waiting a little while to see episode recommendations within Google Podcasts until the switch is eventually flipped across the board.

While this is a neat new update, Google Podcasts still has a long way to go before it usurps many of the more popular and established players like Pocket Casts and Castbox. However, adding features like this definitely differentiates it from the established crowd.