Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, Metacast is available on Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Not yet. If you want us to speed up the development of the web app, please send us a note at feedback@metacast.app and tell us why a web app is important to you.

All Metacast users have access to two playlists: Listen Later and Downloads. More playlists are coming soon!

Listen Later is your listening queue. Find episodes that you want to listen, swipe them, and tap "Listen Later" to add them to the playlist.

Downloads contains all episodes that you've downloaded to your device. You can download an episode by swiping it and choosing the "Download" action.

When you start playing an episode from a playlist, the player will auto-advance to the next episode when the currently playing episode is completed. It works just like playlists in music apps!

Yes. You can download episodes for offline listening by swiping them and choosing the "Download" action. You can also find the download action in triple-dot menus in the episode info or in the player. Learn more about playlists.

There are two ways you can binge on a podcast:

1. Add episodes to the Listen Later playlist, reoder them if necessary, and start playing from the playlist. Episodes will automatically advance.

2. Start playing an episode from the podcast information screen. Episodes will automatically advance. Note that you can only listen to episodes in reverse chronological order (latest first) if you play them from the podcast info screen.

Learn more about playlists.

We use a smart algorithm to check when podcasts have new episodes. Usually, new episodes appear in Metacast in less than 15 minutes after they are published.

Note that we check for new episodes automatically only for shows that are followed by at least one user (there's no use in checking shows that no one listens to!).

Not yet. We've not yet built a notifications feature. If you want us to speed up the development of notifications, please send us a note at feedback@metacast.app and tell us about your use case!

First, find a podcast using the "Search" tab. Then tap "Follow". The podcast will appear on the Home screen in the "Following" section.

Any time there is a new episode, you'll see a blue dot on the podcast cover.

When you tap inside the podcast with a blue dot, you'll see which episodes are new since you viewed the podcast last time. They'll also have blue dots.

See also How frequently does Metacast check podcasts for new episodes?

By default, Metacast will only download episodes over Wi-Fi to conserve your cellular data. However, if you want to allow downloads on cellular, turn off "Download over Wi-Fi Only" in the Settings screen.

Yes! We've made it very easy to share podcasts and episodes with people who may not have Metacast on their phones. Episodes you share from the Metacast app will always have links to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube in addition to the Metacast link.

See this for yourself on the share page of our own Metacast: Behind the Scenes podcast.

While self-service OPML import isn't available in the app yet, we'll be happy to manually import OPML files for Metacast Premium subscribers.

If you have started a Premium trial or subscription, simply send us the OPML file and your User ID to support@metacast.app. You can find your User ID in the app's Settings tab, under "Diagnostics mode." We'll import your favorite podcasts within a couple of business days and send you an email when done.

Read more about OPML import in our blog post.

To play audio from a specific transcript location, double-tap the segment and audio will jump right there.

Transcripts are either generated by AI or provided by podcast creators.

Some podcasts insert personalized ads (the technnical term for this is "dynamic ad insertion") depending on your location and other data. When you listen to an episode, it is possible that your ads were different from the ads served to our transcription server. When this happens, the transcripts can go out of sync with the audio. We detect the mismatch and show a warning.

We're working on solving this issue and making sure that the audio and the transcript are always in sync.

Yes, we'd love to include high quality transcripts from creators direclty! Please send us a note at feedback@metacast.app.

No. The transcript is generated on our servers and downloaded to your device when it's ready. Your phone's battery and network are not used to generate the transcript.

To share a quote, swipe the transcript segment and tap the share icon. Then, you can either copy the segment or share it directly via social media or messenger apps.

Not yet. But you can copy or screenshot the segment that you want to share.

See also How can I share a quote from an episode?

In the player, swipe the segment left-to-right to save a bookmark.

In the player, tap the "Bookmarks" tab to see the bookmarks you've saved for the episode. We're working on the feature to display all your bookmarks in one place.

Remember - in Metacast, everything is a swipe. Just swipe a bookmarked segment un-bookmark it or swipe it right-to-left in the Bookmarks screen and choose "Delete".

Sometimes, transcript generation fails for technical reasons, and you may see an error message instead of a transcript. If you experience an issue like this, please reach out to us via support@metacast.app.

Free users see only 10% of the transcript (which is usually between 5 and 10 minutes of the episode). The rest of the transcript is blurred. To see the full transcript, sign up for Metacast Premium.

Yes, the Metacast Premium subscription is available on both iOS and Android.

Please see our pricing page for details on the Metacast Premium subscription or read the Metacast launch announcement on our blog.

You can listen to any podcast for free, just like in other podcast apps. In addition, Metacast has some powerful features that cost money to build and maintain. We are charging a subscription in order to build a self-sustaining business.

Yes, you can! However, note that creating an account comes with additional benefits.

See Why should I create an account with Metacast? for more details.

All new users who never had any prior subscriptions with Metacast are eligible for a 2-week free trial of Metacast Premium.

You can cancel the subscription any time and continue to use premium features of Metacast for free until the end of the trial period. At the end of the trial benefit, you can continue to use the free version of the app.

Sometimes, podcast hosting services have outages and podcasts hosted on those services cannot be played by podcast apps. When this happens, typically the service is restored within a couple of hours.

In rare circumstances, episodes may not be playing due to errors in the data provided by podcasters or software bugs. If you believe we should look into the issue you're experiencing, please send us the details of the issue at support@metacast.app.

In some rare cases, podcasts may get stuck in the "importing" state due to various errors. If you're experiencing this issue, please reach out to us at support@metacast.app.

Please see our Support page.

Please create a post on our subreddit r/metacastapp or send us an email at feedback@metacast.app if you want to keep your request private.

To leave the beta on iOS, simply re-install the latest version of the Metacast app from the Apple App Store. The app will replace your TestFlight installation and you'll leave the beta program. All of your data will be preserved.

To leave the beta on Android, open Metacast in the Google Play Store app on an Android device. Under "You're a beta tester," tap Leave. Note that this option is only available in the Android Play Store app. If you open up the Play Store in your web browser, you may not see this option.

After you have left the beta program, uninstall Metacast from your device and install it again from the Play Store.

Note: If you created an account, your playlists and followed podcasts will be preserved, but your listening history and downloads will be lost. If you used Metacast in the anonymous mode, all of your data will be lost. To avoid losing your data, we recommend creating an account.

First things first — whether you create an account or not, the functionality is exactly the same

However, if you log out of a guest account (e.g. if you get a new phone and have to reinstall the app), you'll not be able to log back in with the same account. You'll have to create a new Metacast account, which means that you'll lose all your playlists, podcasts you follow, listening history, and other data associated with your account.

Yes, you can! Just head to the "Settings" screen and sign up for an account. All your data will be moved from a guest account to a personal account.