Google to shut down Podcasts app next year; how to keep your subscriptions intact

Podcasts have become wildly popular in the past couple of years, owing to their simplicity and sheer convenience.

The same however, could not be said of Google Podcasts, which never gained the same popularity as Apple Podcasts, or Spotify did. As a result, the service, which is Google’s third attempt at a dedicated podcast app for smartphones, is being shut down in April 2024. Google says it is doing so, in a bid to encourage users to migrate to YouTube Music for podcasts. Here’s all you need to know.

What happens to your podcast subscriptions when the service shuts down?

Google’s Podcasts app was first released in 2018 and was the successor to the Google Listen and Google Play Music Podcasts apps, which were shut down in 2012 and 2020 respectively. Now, Google is also shutting down its Podcasts app in favour of YouTube Music.

Now, for those of you who use the app, you may be worried about losing all your subscriptions. Worry not, though. Google, just today launched a migration tool to help with the same in the US (it will be launched in other markets at a later date as well) to help migrate all your podcasts to YouTube Music quickly and easily, and ensure you don’t have to search for and subscribe to your favourite podcasts, all over again.

How to migrate your Google Podcasts subscriptions

Google’s new migration tool for Google Podcasts will appear on the top as a banner on the app in the coming weeks, with step-by-step instructions on how to use the tool. Alternatively, all one has to do is head to music.youtube.com/transfer_podcasts, and with a simple click, migrate their subscriptions to YouTube Music.

ALSO READ: Tips to consider when buying a microphone for podcasts

Say you don’t want to use YouTube Music however. What do you do then? Well, Google has that taken care of as well. Users will be given the option to export their podcast subscriptions as an OPML file, at podcasts.google.com. The XML-specified format can be downloaded, exported, and uploaded to other podcast apps which a user may prefer to use, provided they support uploads.

As mentioned earlier, users still have some to migrate their podcast subscriptions, and can continue to use the app until April 2024.