Google Podcasts app is going away, and users will no longer be able to listen to their favourite shows starting Tuesday, April 2, 2024. The Podcast app now shows a message when opening the app highlighting that it will not be functional after the due date and that users should export their subscriptions to access them once the app is discontinued. The tech giant is also promoting YouTube Music as an alternative space to listen to podcasts and has even added a tool to easily export subscriptions.
Opening the Google Podcasts app now shows a message which states, “After April 2, 2024, you will no longer be able to listen to podcasts on Google Podcasts. You can get podcasts, music, and more, all on the YouTube Music app as an alternative.” The company first revealed its plans to discontinue the app in September 2023, when in a blog post it added the feature to watch and listen to podcasts on YouTube Music in the US.
Even as the Podcasts app has more than 500 million downloads just on Android’s Play Store, Google cited data from Edison Research, a firm that tracks data on podcasts, to highlight that about 23 percent of weekly podcast users in the US prefer listening to the shows on YouTube Music as opposed to just 4 percent on Google Podcasts.
With the shutdown, users cannot play content on the Podcasts app, however, Google will provide a few more days for users to export their data and subscriptions to either YouTube Music or another app of their choosing. While the tech giant has provided a tool to easily export subscriptions to YouTube Music, shifting to other apps will require turning the subscriptions into an OPML file first. Alternatively, users can simply add the podcasts manually using the RSS feed.
For those users who intend to switch to YouTube Music, Google has also created a support page with a step-by-step guide to make the transition easy. However, it should be noted that some podcasts may not be transferred using this process. If a podcast does not comply with YouTube’s Community Guidelines, it will not be transferred automatically. If this happens, users can go to Library > select Podcasts > click Add podcast > choose Add a podcast by RSS feed.