American multinational tech giant Google is bidding farewell to its dedicated podcast app, with Google Podcasts shutting down in the United States tomorrow, April 2nd. The Sundar Pichai-led company has urged users to migrate their subscriptions and listening preferences to YouTube Music, underscoring Google’s broader strategy to consolidate its audio offerings.
The Google Podcasts app, boasting over 500 million downloads, offered a user-friendly platform for discovering and enjoying podcasts for over half a decade. However, Google announced plans to wind down the app last September, aiming to centralize its audio services under the YouTube umbrella. This follows a similar transition in 2020, where Google Play Music users were encouraged to switch to YouTube Music.
The shift isn’t entirely unexpected. YouTube Music has been steadily integrating podcast functionalities, including the addition of RSS feeds and the ability to upload them. This merger allows Google to streamline content consumption and potentially become a bigger player in the podcasting space, especially with the growing interest in video podcasts.
For those attached to the Google Podcasts app, there is still time to save your subscriptions. Google is sending emails with an option to export subscriptions, allowing you to transfer them to YouTube Music or another service until July 2024. For those who prefer a different platform, migrating subscriptions to non-YouTube Music platforms requires downloading an OPML file through Google Takeout, a slightly more complex process.
“Users can now migrate Google Podcasts subscriptions to YouTube Music or to another app that supports OPML import,” a message on the ‘Help Center’ of the company’s website read.
Notably, while users can still download the app for now, it won’t allow streaming after the April 2nd. While the U.S. shutdown is immediate, Google has not announced a concrete timeline for the rest of the world. Still, Google Podcasts app expected to be discontinued globally later in 2024.
