The reports that stated that the Google Podcast would vanish along with other Google products—hardware, software, and apps—will reportedly come to pass on Tuesday, April 2. Similar to numerous other items that Google seems to remove without any explanation, the Podcast app was popular and had reached 500 million downloads precisely a year prior.
After April 2nd, the Google Podcast app will no longer be available in the United States, forcing many users who have subscriptions to certain podcasts to switch to another podcast app. This is a complicated procedure that puts some Google Podcast users at risk of having their login information stolen. Users of the Google Podcast app received in-app messages alerting them of the app’s impending shutdown on April 2nd and advising them to prepare backup plans.
The YouTube Music app is one location where fans of Google Podcasts may go to keep listening to their preferred podcasts. For podcasters and fans alike, Google claims that the YouTube Music app will be a “better overall destination with YouTube-only capabilities across community, discovery, and audio/visual switching.” Google provides instructions on how to transfer your Google Podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music on a support page for YouTube:
- Open the Google Podcasts application.
- From the top menu, choose Export subscriptions.
- Choose Export from the “Export to YouTube Music” menu.
- Open the YouTube Music app and select Transfer.
- Click continue.
- When the transfer is finished, choose Go to Library to view your subscriptions.
Things to Bear in Mind:
- Hold on, the transfer of your subscriptions can take a few minutes!
- Not every podcast will be accessible on YouTube Music; if that’s the case, you could notice a “Content is unavailable” notice next to the podcast.
- If a podcast isn’t available on YouTube Music, you can use the show’s RSS feed link to save it to your collection.
Users can transfer their Google Podcast subscriptions to YouTube Music until July 2024, even if the service ends on April 2nd.
