What is your podcast workflow? Are any of you like me and a bit overwhelmed by shows and episodes you want to keep an eye on.
I find myself jumping back and forth between Overcast and Pocket Casts.
I have used Overcast for years and was generally happy with it but the one thing I wanted was to be able to keep a list of podcasts I didn’t want to subscribe to but I wanted to keep track of.
Shows that I might listen to every few episodes of depending on the guest or topic. While there are about 6 shows I want every episode/notifications. In Overcast I just pinned those shows to the top but needed to stay subscribed to all the shows I wanted to track so I found myself getting notifications and badges for shows I might not care for which lead to a weekly archive spree.
When I moved to Pocket Casts I liked the idea of Folders so I could keep a folder of the main shows I waned every ep of and set up folders for the other shows I wanted to track. Also I like the idea of the Mac app mostly just from a management standpoint.
But the downside is the notification badges are either on or off and can’t be configured by folders.
Starting this week I decided to just utilize the iOS and Spotify apps to follow and subscribe to the shows I don’t want every ep of.
Overcast = Shows I want every EP of with notifications on
Apple Podcast / Spotify = Subscribe to the shows I want to keep an eye on.
While this keeps my Overcast feed clean I feel like I will totally not open those apps.
I have two playlists on Overcast. One (Called First) which includes Podcasts I know I want to listen to pretty much every episode. There are not enough for my weekly listening so it runs out a couple of times a week.
I then have a second playlist (Called All) which includes every podcast I’m subscribed to (including those in the playlist above) I look at this when my first playlist is running low, delete episodes I know I’m not going to listen to and add a few to my First Playlist.
If I subscribe to a new podcast and download old episodes, this new podcast stays in All until I’m pretty much caught up, then I may move it to First.
I do the same. In the first list I download episodes, in the second I stream.
If only you could pin podcasts in playlists as well. Afaik you can only pin in “All Episodes”
I only sparingly promote from second to first list. Too little time to listen …
The answer to almost everything in Overcast is a playlist. You can set priority podcasts in playlist settings (episodes from priority podcasts go to the top of the playlist) and there is more flexibility than you might think if you look through all the settings.
Playlists aren’t mutually exclusive: which suggests making lists for your high priority or particular topics and other lists which include everything else with them.
The quick swipe gesture to delete episodes is what works for me and turning notifications off. I’m happy to open the app and see what has arrived when I want to listen to something. I don’t need to be nagged.
One playlist called “Newest,” where new episodes come in, ordered newest-first.
When the Newest playlist is empty, it’s easy enough for me to create a playlist containing all episodes, and start catching up with those. Or I can just take the AirPods out of my ears and listen to the birds and my thoughts.
When the Newest playlist gets long and unwieldy–as it is today–I use Overcast’s built-in Queue feature for episodes I want to listen to right away.
And I have a few podcasts pinned to the top of the list, for podcasts that I’m catching up with the back catalog of.
Not shown: The Newest playlist, with a bunch of episodes that I’ll want to try once I’ve listened to everything in the queue. New episodes come in to the top of the “Newest” playlist. I listen to the most interesting ones of those right away.
I have 4 filters in Pocket Casts (rules for each in parentheses)
Listen #1 : Preferred podcasts, always listen to these first (Download and Up next)
New Episodes: Listen regularly, after the #1 list is done. (Download)
All Podcasts: Full list of all subscriptions. (Last Month. Show episodes up to one month back)
In Progress: Self-explanatory.
I use Castro like this. Inbox: everything new (no annoying notifications.) Queue: what you actually decided to listen to from the inbox. If you’re addicted to a show, set it to auto-queue.
You can do this in Overcast. Just add the podcast, and then turn off “subscribe to new episodes”. You’ll have to look for episodes manually, but it’s definitely do-able.
Started with Overcast years ago. It’s been so long that I really don’t remember much beyond that it was stable and solid but lacked some features while being a pioneer in others such as removing silence, playback speed, etc.
For some reason I moved to Castro and stuck with it for quite a while but after accepting that it was becoming abandonware and the bugs were piling up I decided to find something better.
Pocketcasts fit the bill for me in terms of both configurability as well as the cross-platfirm support. I’d pined for a synced podcast player across my iPhone and MacBook and Castro was the first one that seemed to properly do this. It even syncs with Amazon Alexa/Echo!
That said, the devs have been working on fixing some annoying bugs that have cropped up so its far from perfect.
My wishlist for Pocketcasts going forward:
Share clips from podcasts (Castro and (i think) Overcast both had this)
Allow highlighting parts of podcasts/bookmarking timestamps. There’s often parts I’d like to go back to later.
Integrate some type of transcription at least for segments of podcasts.
There are hoards of other podcast apps out there that provide bits and pieces but I’ve yet to see as good a cross-platform app as this so I’m sticking with it for longer.
About workflow: After the initial setup (OPML import) and creating ‘folders’ I really only just use the queue/up-next most of the time and can barely get through what I have there. The ones in my feed I rarely have the time to get to though maybe on a long flight I would have more time. I find this works well so far.
I use Pocket Casts. Getting my set up going, I go into the Settings in the app. I then go to Auto Download and tell it to auto download the 2-3 shows I listen to each week. I then go to Auto Add to Up Next and pick those episodes to appear at the top of my queue. Once this is set up one time, the app auto downloads the shows I like and sets them up next in the queue, and then I deal with the leftovers one by one in my main list by going into each show and seeing what’s available.
I don’t listen to a ton of shows so in the days where it was 10-12 the same logic held true, it’s just that maybe 6-8 shows would have been auto downloaded and added to the queue instead of 2-3 now.
I have to say, my podcast listening in general has plummeted. I’m currently subscribed to six shows, and one isn’t releasing episodes at present. I just decided I was done listening to celebrities promote whatever they’re working on surrounded by 45 mins of fluff (Smartless, Fly on the Wall, Conan Needs a Friend). With the exception of Smartness which was just the three of them humble bragging, the others were entertaining. Just not…necessary…ya know?
