Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with listeners migrated to YouTube Music
Google announced this morning it will be shutting down its Google Podcasts app later in 2024 as part of its broader transition to move its streaming
This would be a great moment for The Onion to run a headline like "Google plans to sunset Gmail, migrate users to YouTube Music."
'No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Business Where This Regularly Happen
"Google plans to require a YouTube Premium subscription to allow users to search while minimized, industry leak claims"
I think that one might cause some real pandemonium in that far too many people would think it’s legit.
It used take one single troll to pull it off... back when twitter existed and had any sort of legitimacy.
That should be a very strong indication about how little faith people have in Google now.
Why would you need Gmail? Just share messages through Google docs
I never really explored non-FOSS podcast services, did it offer anything in particular over something like AntennaPod? Is some content exclusive?
Many paid/non-FOSS apps provide more features then AntennaPod, or have better layouts, but AntennaPod is one of the FOSS apps that is close enough to being what I really want, that I use it over the rest.
The one feature missing that I'm really baffled by is the ability to customize how your podcasts page is laid out, so hopefully they get around to it one of these days.
No. Google podcasts is very basic minimalistic app.
Dear Google.
YouTube Music is shit. Stop trying to combine your other services into YouTube music.
Google Play Music was good. Google Podcasts was... not awful
YouTube Music is the worst of both services.
Just stop
I loved Google play music as a locker for my owned music and a a storefront to buy what I wanted. YouTube Music made me abandon it completely and move my owned music onto my plex server.
Why does Google have to ruin everything? Still bitter about Google Reader closing back in the day. That was the beginning of the end of me having confidence in their services and moving to self hosting as much as I can.
Google Music was the only place I bought music digitally other than iTunes, and I used it religiously. I downloaded all of my personal music uploaded to Google Music before it closed with the intention of running my own Plex server. A friend who works IT security scared me into not running an externally-accessible Plex server.
So I fight with the YouTube Music app being complete dogshit on CarPlay. If you think the app is bad on mobile, just try the CarPlay version. Unusable.
As someone who loves Google Podcasts this sucks. Fuck YouTube Music and I miss my Google Music.
As a YouTube Music subscriber (because of yt premium): "stop trying to make YouTube music a thing. It's not going to happen".
What is the complaint about YouTube music. I got it for free and it’s pretty good. Maybe not perfect but I don’t big beef about it.
This is why Google will forever be behind Apple. Any app that can't be monetised gets killed. Why give Android users a stable ecosystem after all? Fuck the users. Google fucking sucks.
To be fair the Apple podcast app kind of sucks too, its just the most convenient one to use since it comes pre installed.
It's not like podcast players are particularly complex to build and maintain, so they don't require that much cashflow. Podbean sustains itself quite well with the odd image ad and AntennaPod is FOSS. I think the problem is more the opposite, since competition is so easy and monetising it would suck interest out of it, Google has no interest in actually competing. Which is why they're trying to build their own walled garden with uploading your podcasts only directly to YouTube, RSS feeds be damned.
Killing google play music didn't make me switch to youtube music, same here
Why are they forcing users to YouTube Music anyway? They could improve the product before killing all of their other services.
YouTube Music doesn’t even remember where you left off. Switch to your phone? Music queue is gone. Close the tab? Music queue is gone. Anything other than an algorithm curated playlist will make you have a shit experience on YouTube Music.
Exactly. YT Music of such a trash interface compared to Google Play Music that I actually bothered to try Spotify when they killed GPM. They're not accomplishing their goals here
Good news: you never needed Google Podcasts to begin with. Antenna Pod is a Free Open Source app that won't track your every move and just works.
I've been using it since I switched to Android about 10 years ago, and while it took some time to get the UX right, I really couldn't recommend it more now.
What an awesome app. Really, it's unusual to see an open source app be so polished. Thanks for the recommendation.
I never knew about this app, thanks for the recommendation!
Doesn't just work for me. When I'm playing a podcast on Android auto, leave the car, come back, there's no way to resume the podcast.
On every other app, there's a little floating icon in the bottom right of the screen that you tap to get to the now playing, so you can resume, but antenna pod doesn't have that.
I am sorry to hear that. I don't personally use Android Auto, so that's a situation I'm not familiar with. I am also sorry to see people downvoting your comment just because you report a bad experience, that doesn't help anyone.
I would recommend opening an issue about it on the project page in GitHub. Another advantage of FOSS apps is that developers are usually easer to reach for feedback and support, although I must say I don't have experience with the AntennaPod developers.
Does it work with Android Auto voice commands?
Sorry, I don't use Android Auto so I don't know about this feature. You could check on their GitHub page and even open an issue if there is no support.
I love that one. And also PocketCast.
Why is Google trying to follow the model of Spotify even though the model is not really successful? I hate when browsing my music in Spotify some podcast pops up. I just want to listen to my music, dammit!
Google Play Music users: "First 600th time?"
Do they have a script that they must follow? Why every single time they need to kill a product BEFORE having a fucking replacement???
Why they couldn't implement podcasts in yt music and then kill Google podcasts?
Why. Every. Single. Time. They need to kill a product BEFORE the replacement is ready?????????????
I'm guessing right now every dev with a podcasting app on the play store is popping champagne from the huge influx of Google podcasts refugees
AntennaPod is great.
Nice! Full support for recommendations in my language!
Go for AntennaPod. FOSS and works great
It's still up right now, they plan to kill it by 2024 and YTMP will supposedly be online by then. I suppose this has to do with reallocating their developers and avoiding redundant apps. Not that they're consistent with the latter.
one suggestion: pocketcasts
Uuuh, podcasts have been available in YouTube music for a while.
BeyondPod is paid but pretty decent.
At this point it's on you if you put any faith in any Google product aside from Search/YT/Adtech to last longer than a couple of years.
Best case scenario: They forget about whatever product you like and it's allowed to continue running for years with zero updates.
Most likely scenario: They kill it off to merge into another product line that overlaps with a third of the features only to do the exact same thing again within a year or two.
Oh Google.
They kicked everyone off Google Music to go to YT Music and Google Podcasts. Now they’re killing Google Podcasts and telling people to go to YT Music.
If YT Music wasn’t linked with my YouTube Premium subscription, I would never use it.
I decided to cancel both. YT Music deleted my music that they don't have in their global library, and they fucked up the sorting of my liked playlist. Going back to buying music a la carte and storing it myself.
I sometimes decide to try out YouTube Music for playing some of the music I have saved on YT in a more music focused UI.
Then I go back straight back to regular YouTube, because half the songs/music can't be played in YT Music (including offical music on official channels).
I feel like I get some good value out of YT Premium, but I don't understand YT Music.
Fortunately when they killed the podcasts out of Google Play Music I switched to Podcast Addict and never looked back.
I honestly feel bad for the guys assigned to work on this dead-end project.
And considering the buggy, infuriating mess that YTM is and that team is being rewarded with expanded scope, I wonder what dirt they have on Sundar.
Okay, it isn't just me who find YTM buggy.
As a music player, could it please play music? Jesus.
I have 4 people that use it on my account, it plays music just fine. Makes playlists, finds similar artist, View artist/album on long press, add to current list now or at the end, etc...
Actually has some interesting and unique features (like I can add stuff from youtube app or desktop even to a playlist and it will be in the playlist on TYM later on.)
What does it not do for you?
Fuck! I liked Google podcasts due to the android auto integration! I am not willing to install yt music on my phone.
I recommend Pocket Casts.
Thanks, seems nice 👍
I've been using Podcast Republic for a while and it's solid. Works great with AA.
I have premium and I can't use Youtube without video on Android auto. That needs to change.
Google is now my least favorite company.
Why? That one actually makes sense to consolidate.
Youtube music is hot garbage.
Not going to down vote you for disagreeing. I think the frustrations stem from the constant closure of apps. Whether it makes sense or not, it is annoying getting invested into a service and then it gets pulled away. I would say it's essentially inevitable that any app or service you use today will lose support at some point. Google has a track record now of closing apps fairly early. I'm already finding that YouTube Music is getting features that I have no interest in using.
I could understand consolidation when you're as big as google and lot of these one-off apps (Duo, Allo, Podcasts, Measure, Hangouts, etc.) are all clearly just testing grounds for either specific features eventually destined for their mainline apps, or just neat ideas that never caught on and couldn't be monetized enough to warrant keeping the service alive.
The real issue is: they almost NEVER actually make the "consolidated" app reach feature parity with the one it gets folded into.
YouTube Music allows the app to be minimized, AFAIK.
It's standard YouTube (non-premiun) that requires the app to be in the foreground.
You can use the YouTube music app with a standard (free) YouTube account, at least on iOS. But the audio only keeps playing in the background if you pay for YouTube music. And I think you can’t download music to play offline.
For what it’s worth, YouTube Premium ($14/ month) includes YouTube music and removes ads for YouTube.
Seems to vary depending on whether I'm attempting to listen to music on my device ("attempting to" is the right word as it takes 15 seconds to load each individual song as it goes through a playlist) or listen to a YouTube video. It can go further into the background if it's music on my device, no further back than a big window drawn over the screen if it's a podcastable video, and must be in the foreground for a video IIRC.
Does Google Podcasts really not support that? Because that's like... the basics.
Google Podcasts does, but background play is a premium feature on YouTube Music.
It used to. They paywalled it with YouTube premium.
InnerTune. No ads, no account. Minimize/do what you want.
I'm totally on board them getting investigated for antitrust and monopolistic practices. Google has really turned to shit the last 4-5 years.
Well fuck me, why? Why oh why? It's such a clean and simple app, no weird shit and of course it gets axed. I think I may just stop listening to podcasts then, much easier than switching to an app I have no interest in.
AntennaPod is great, free, and has no ads. Pretty sure it's open source too.
Open source indeed: github.com/AntennaPod
I might have to check it out, thanks!
I've been using Pocket Casts for years. Works great.
PodcastAddict is my go-to, with the caveat that it's absolutely chock full of nerd knobs.
Another +1 for PodcastAddict
To copy Spotify?
Or to satiate the soul harvester at the Google Graveyard.
That sucks, it's been my only podcast app for many years.
I will never switch to YouTube music. Guess I'll have to leave another google service.
Edit: Moved to antennapod in about 10 minutes, bye google podcasts 😂
Just use a good podcast app like Pocket Casts. It’s the king on iOS at least, so I assume it’s good on Android as well. I never understood why people keep using these shitty Google apps that always get abandoned.
AntennaPod on Android. I use Pocket Casts but only because I’m on iOS, once I switch back to Android I’m going back to AntennaPod, it’s open source and imo easier to customise than any other podcast app and I went through a lot of them trying to find the one that doesn’t try to force it’s terrible ux on you
Yes! Although I had to stop using it because it (at least the F-Droid version) refused to work when I disabled Google services on the phone.
All podcast apps are broken, be it Pocket Casts, AntennaPod or the officials one from Apple/Google. I always discover on the go that an episode has been partially downloaded and even though I authorized the download over my data network, it doesn't resume automatically.
I originally switched from Podcast Addict to Google Podcasts for seamless integration when listening to podcasts directly on Google Home devices. Hopefully this means better Google Home integration with popular third-party podcast apps, but it probably just means we'll be forced to use YouTube Music instead. :-/
Pocket Casts isn't on Android. I kept hearing it brought up when I was looking to replace DoggCatcher and went with Podcast Addict. Took Google so long to finally allow people to manually add feeds from URL. Which was why I never really used it unless just wanting to stream an old ep of a listed show randomly. So when they added that ability, I was happy to see they seemed to be kind of supporting it seriously. But I was already moved to PA and am glad to not gone with Google.
I liked their original Listen app for being ridiculously bare bones and no ads or anything that requires more data. But they killed that long ago. I am not sure if Google just loves to create trust issues with users. Or if they just really have self esteem issues and can only act in dramatic ways that don't make sense.
PocketCasts is on Android but it's not great. Podcast Republic is the absolute best. I've tried them all.
Mind you I love pocket casts but I always have had the need to install another podcast app such as Google podcasts, castbox or fountain to have a search that works beyond the show name at the level of episode names.
Sometimes I love listening to various podcasts about a topic or I'm just curious and use it like an user uses youtube search.
This is why I'll never get invested in Google again. I'm working on trying to move everything I can out.
Edit: Spelling
Yup same here. It's also made me realise I don't ever want to be tied into a platform anymore.
I've been moving cloud, passwords, email, accounts, podcasts, notes, news etc all to platforms or services that are either selfhosted or are easily exportable and can be backed up for access into another platform.
I still have Google Listen on my first Android phone. Maybe I can go back...
YT music isn't even available in my region, these fucks.
A VPN should work but I think downloading music is better
I saw this coming when GPM shutdown and podcasts migrated to Google Podcasts. The GPM podcasts were already bugged before that due to lack of attention. Very happy I bailed out for AntennaPod way back then!
While I don't nessesarily hate YT Music (merging Spotify habits with it means I have community uploads and official streams in the same place) this is such a Google move to pull off.
Today on: "What did Google decide to kill?"
I switched to Pocket Cast
& VLC player for music
+1 for Pocketcasts
Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024
Welp, another Google service that was too beautiful for this world.
Time to move my subscriptions to other podcatcher then. [taking a quick look at various migration options] Hmmm. What to write on Google Podcasts gravestone? "Here lies Google Podcasts. It never supported OPML."
with listeners migrated to YouTube Music
Damn. I migrated my Google Play Music purchases to YouTube Music and to this day I have no idea where they actually went. If I hadn't downloaded the local MP3 copies with the terrible joke of a client software they had, I'd have been screwed. Went back to just buying music on iTunes.
I ended up recovering some of my music using Google takeout which in turn absolutely wrecked most of the tags on my songs.
My migrated music from Google Play seems to be in the "Library" section of Youtube Music.
What the fuck. I use both apps, but podcasts doesn't blow at life when it comes to actual podcasts.
Another one for the pile
Antennapod
Antenna Pod
Okay, in the meantime, how do I export my subscriptions from Google Podcasts?
Last I checked, Google does not have that feature. There's an open-source project to extract them for you, though: https://github.com/lucasrangit/google-podcasts-export-opml
I started hunting for a new podcast platform when Stitcher announced they were shutting down earlier this year, and I settled on Podurama. It's the only one I can use on any platform, including desktop Linux (via the web version, which is actually quite good). I can subscribe to private feeds (e.g. from Patreon subscriptions), it syncs play history in my account, and it allows me to mark episodes played in bulk so manually porting over my listening history was not as big an ordeal as in other apps/platforms.
I'm using it for free, though they do offer a paid version with some very minimal additional features.
Edit: I would much prefer an open-source solution, but I have yet to find one that works across platforms and syncs between all devices. Open to suggestions if I missed anything good. At minimum I need an Android client and web client (or if they actually make apps for Mac/Windows/Linux/Android and somehow don't have a web client, that's fine too, but that seems unlikely).
You might be able to grab them from takeout.google.com
Any recommendations for android? I know there's pocket casts but I'm not paying a subscription for a podcast app. All I need it to do is literally find the podcast then click play. I'm not really sure what there even is to innovate on for apps to charge you.
If you only listen to podcasts on your phone, I can highly recommend AntennaPod. It is free and open source. I have been using it for around 6 months now since Pocket Casts increased from $10 to $40 per year.
pocket cast is free to use, no?
Yeah. I don't pay for pocket cast.
Is it subscription now? I paid like $3 for it once ten years ago.
It is free for most features, but the paid subscription is now $40 per year.
Yeah, I'm holding on to the lifetime grandfathered premium and don't foresee myself using anything else until they end it.
I like AntennaPod.
Podcast Republic is my go to. I listen to 5 or 6 podcasts. But have 2 or 3 that are time relevant, like news. I set those as priority, and Podcast Republic makes an auto playlist that puts them all in order by my preference, then release date old to new.
If a preferred podcast comes out, it goes to the top of my auto playlist. I can't podcast without it now.
I used to use PodcastAddict, before my work replaced my perfectly functional Galaxy 10 with a used iPhone SE. Not sure that one exists anymore, but I loved it.
I can only recommend pocket casts! But I'm aware of the fact that they've moved to a subscription model since I purchased the app, and I can only give that recommendation based on my purchase which included full features for life (a deal which has thus far been honored). If the sub is worth is might be another question for someone who has it.
I started using Pocket Casts last year when it was $10 per year. This year they first raised it to $15 per year, and now it is $40 per year. That is too much in my opinion. I've had enough with services that nearly always get worse, so I am now using AntennaPod. It is a free open source Android app that doesn't need accounts or subscriptions.
Ah. Yeah, that's a bit pricier than it used to be. I do think their web version was worth the money, and I'd probably still subscribe for it if I didn't buy the services outright back in the day. I'd say it would depend on how one uses it though. If it's just used as an app, then I'd choose something else. The web service is golden though.
Back in the day I used to like AntennaPod, but I have had my pocket casts service for so long that I can't say if anything is good these days.
Fucking again... I really let it happen to myself this time...
I think I'm the only person on the internet that likes YT Music.
I think so, too 😀. I much preferred Google Play Music. I also hate that I now get music recommendations when I'm trying to watch TV.
That seems plausible.
May I ask why?
Personally, I find its UI/UX is annoying. The quality of the sound is awesome, though.
There should be an xkcd for Google killing off stuff.
Unless there already is.
Or an Onion article that we can repeat post everyone this happens. Twice a year in most years. Google Domains.
You mean this? https://xkcd.com/1361
I didn't know it existed, but it does and it's perfect. thank you.
Well fuck here we go again. I can't stand YouTube Music, and Spotify is not where I want to go for Podcasts.
Comeon Google stop pulling this kind of crap.
Ah, fantastic, another fucking app to migrate because of a corporate decision. Wonder when this shit is going to become a weekly occurrence.
Once you stop giving those big corporations your data and money it will stop quite quickly.
Start using FOSS for everything you can and your life gets easier from this point of view, the software might get abandont, but you can still keep using it for years if you want to.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The company earlier this year announced YouTube Music would begin supporting podcasts in the U.S., which will expand globally by year-end, and more recently said it was adding the ability for podcasters to upload their RSS feeds to YouTube also by year-end.
The latter is something rival Spotify has also been working on with its rollout of video podcast support to creators worldwide last year along with community features like Q&As and polls.
These migration tools aren’t yet available but will be worked on in the coming weeks and months before being rolled out to all users.
“We know this transition will take time, but these efforts will allow us to build an amazing product and a single destination that rewards creators and artists and provides fans with the best Podcasts experience,” a YouTube blog post explained.
We’re committed to being transparent in communicating future changes with our users and podcasters and will have more to share about this process in the coming months,” it said.
The move will leave only Apple among the major players that hasn’t consolidated music and podcasts into a single destination, as Spotify, Amazon and Pandora all offer both types of audio in their flagship applications.
The original article contains 530 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
happy birthday Google, 25yo! LOL
God damnit...
Podcast is basic - I wish I could do a text search on episode descriptions - but the simplicity is a lot of what makes it good. YouTube is a mess of crap and I don't like using it. I guess I'll be looking for another app now.
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
