Back in September, and then in December, we told you to expect Google to shut its Podcast app in April 2024. Guess what. According to Forbes, this coming Tuesday, April 2nd, the earlier reports will come true as the next day Google Podcast will go to that place where other Google apps, hardware, and software end up disappearing. And just like the many other things that Google shuts down seemingly for no reason, the Podcast app was a success reaching 500 million downloads exactly one year ago.
The Google Podcast app in the U.S. is going away after April 2nd and many users who have subscriptions to certain podcasts will have to move to another podcast app. This is not a simple process and can leave some Google Podcast users open to having their credentials stolen. In-app notifications were disseminated to users of the Google Podcast app reminding them it would be shut down oafter April 2nd and reminding them to make contingency plans.
Google Podcast’s last day is April 2nd
One place where Google Podcast users can go in order to continue listening to their favorite podcasts is the YouTube Music app. Google says that the YouTube Music app will be a “better overall destination for fans and podcasters alike with YouTube-only capabilities across community, discovery and audio/visual switching.” On a YouTube support page, Google explains how to move your Google Podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music:
- Visit the Google Podcasts app
- Select Export subscriptions at the top of the screen.
- Select Export under ‘Export to YouTube Music’
- Select Transfer on the YouTube Music app
- Select Continue
- Select Go to Library to view your subscriptions once the transfer is complete
Things to keep in mind:
- It may take a few minutes for your subscriptions to transfer, so hang tight!
- Not all podcasts will be available in YouTube Music and you may see a “Content is unavailable” message next to it if that’s the case
- If a podcast is missing from YouTube Music, you can save it to your library using the show’s RSS feed link
Even though Google Podcast shuts down on April 2nd, users will have until July 2024 to migrate their subscriptions to YouTube Music.
