Google Podcasts shutting down in April, YouTube Music export coming

Abner Li | Dec 7 2023 - 8:00 am PT

Google today shared a more precise timeline of when Google Podcasts will stop working in 2024, while export options for YouTube Music and other apps are rolling out soon.

Top comment by Julian

Liked by 21 people

I've used Google Podcasts for the past few years, it was simple and worked well for my needs. But with this upcoming transition, I switched over to YT Music to give it a try.

I had to manually add my 3 shows via RSS which was pretty easy but I don't like that I had to do it manually (before this upcoming export feature). And while I liked having Music and Podcasts in the same app, I don't like how the queues were the same.

In G Podcasts, I liked being able to open it and resume where I left off even a week ago. But since I switch to Music occasionally, the Podcast queue would be cleared and the next time I went in I'd have to navigate to the Podcasts area and then find the episode I was previously playing. I didn't like that.

I'm now trying Pocket Casts and so far I like it a lot! It's like G Podcasts but with more control and features.

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Google Podcasts will stop working in the US “as early as April 2024,” with the company guaranteeing availability through March.

Ahead of that, Google Podcasts will get the ability to “Export subscriptions” to YouTube Music with a prominent banner at the top of the screen appearing in the coming weeks. You then confirm the “Transfer” in YouTube Music. The tool will also be online, and more details are coming here.

For podcasts that aren’t currently available on YouTube, listeners will be able to add shows directly to their YouTube Music library via the podcast’s RSS feed.

There’s also the option to export Google Podcasts subscriptions as an OPML file if you want to switch to a third-party app. In the US, you will have until July 2024 to migrate/export from Google Podcasts.

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We’ll share more about Google Podcasts’ availability and the release of this migration tool for other countries soon.

Meanwhile, Google said today that YouTube Music is adding a “mark as played” option for podcast episodes. This will be available “in the coming months,” but hopefully much sooner than that as this is truly a basic feature for any podcasting client. If you encounter an episode you don’t want to listen to today, the only option is manually scrubbing to the end. YTM should also really add new episode alerts.