Frequently Asked Questions

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

Yes. You can search and play public podcasts on our web app. You can also access transcripts and summaries for episodes that have them.

The web app is available to anyone for free and does not require users to be logged in. Logging in is not supported yet, so you won't be able to access your playlists or followed podcasts on the web.

All Metacast users have access to a few default playlists: Listen Later, Following and Downloads.

Learn more about playlists here.

Yes. You can download episodes for offline listening by swiping them and choosing the Download action. You can also find the Download button in the episode info and 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, reorder 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?

Yes. To add a private podcast, simply to go the Search tab, tap Add podcast by RSS feed, and paste the URL of the feed.

Note that some limits apply:

Number of private RSS feeds you can follow

• Metacast Premium users can follow up to 10 private feeds. If you want to follow more than 10 feeds, please reach out to us at support@metacast.app.
• Free users can follow up to 3 private feeds. To follow more than 3 feeds, upgrade to Metacast Premium.

Transcripts, chapters, and summaries for private feeds

• Metacast Premium users get transcripts, summaries, and chapters for up to 10 hours of audio content from private feeds per month.
• Free users can listen to private podcasts, but no transcripts, summaries, and chapters will be created for private feeds.

If you are a Premium user and you more than 10 hours of content to be enhanced with transcripts, summaries, and chapters, please reach out to us at support@metacast.app.

Read more about the feature and limits in the blog post.

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 can be played on the web and have links to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

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 via the RSS feed.

Learn more in the blog post.

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! Before generating a transcript with AI, we first check if a transcript is provided via the podcast:transcript tag in the RSS feed (docs).

Supported transcript formats:

We support transcripts with and without speakers. To display speaker pictures next to the speaker name on the web, the speaker name must match the speaker name in the podcast:person tag in the RSS feed (docs).

If you added a transcript, but don't see it in the Metacast mobile app, go to the episode's page on the web (tap "Share" and copy the episode link in the mobile app). The web page should display the transcript along with the source at the bottom. If the transcript on the web doesn't match the transcript in the Metacast mobile app, please reach out to us at support@metacast.app.

Note: We launched creator-provided transcripts on Oct 8, 2025. If someone listened to your episode prior to this, Metacast will continue to show the AI-generated transcript.

No. The transcript is either downloaded from the podcast's hosting provider or generated on our servers. Your phone's CPU, battery or 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.

You can copy the entire transcript by tapping the Export Transcript button on the episode information screen on iOS or Android. You'll be able to copy it to the clipboard or save it into a file. The transcript will be exported in the Markdown format along with chapter titles, speaker names (if available), timestamps, and your bookmarks. You can also see the full transcript on the web. Learn more on the podcast transcripts feature page.

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 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 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.