For Podcasters

YourPods is an independent podcast app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and CarPlay, with a web player for YourPods Pro members. It works with the open podcast ecosystem: your public RSS feed is all it needs. There is nothing to sign up for and no terms to accept.

There is no separate submission. YourPods search uses the Apple Podcasts directory, so once your show is listed in Apple Podcasts, listeners can find it in YourPods. In the app, listeners can also search Podcast Index with their own API keys.

The app. The YourPods app checks your feed and downloads your audio directly from your servers, on the listener's own device. There is no central crawler for the app: every request comes from a listener.

The web player. Browsers can't read most feeds directly, so our server fetches your feed on a listener's behalf when their request needs it, and keeps it for up to 10 minutes. It doesn't crawl on a schedule. It also fetches the chapter and transcript files your feed links to.

Audio in the web player streams from your host straight to the listener's browser. If a listener turns on proxy playback, which hides their IP address from your host, or downloads an episode in the browser, our server may relay the audio as it plays. It doesn't store or re-host your audio.

• The app, from version 26.9, on every request (feeds, audio and artwork): YourPods/1.0 (+https://yourpods.app/; iOS podcast app), with macOS podcast app or Apple Watch podcast app on those devices. Earlier versions send YourPods/1.0 on feed requests.
• Our server, fetching feeds, chapters and transcripts: YourPods.app/1.0 Feed Fetcher (+https://yourpods.app/)
• Our server, relaying audio for one listener: YourPods.app/1.0

The version stays at 1.0 on purpose. A User-Agent that changed with every release would help fingerprint listeners. We don't put subscriber counts in our User-Agents, and we don't publish listener numbers for any show.

• Chapters from <podcast:chapters>, including chapter artwork. The app also reads chapters embedded in the audio file (ID3 in MP3, chapter atoms in MP4 and M4A) and prefers them, because they stay aligned when ads are inserted dynamically.
• Transcripts from <podcast:transcript>, in SRT, VTT, JSON, HTML, plain text and more.
• Show details: explicit, serial order, live items, funding links and Value 4 Value.
• Moving hosts: when your old feed carries <itunes:new-feed-url>, the app moves its subscribers to the new address.

YourPods includes P3, a tracking blocker that listeners can choose to turn on. It is off by default and can be set per podcast. When it is on, P3 removes known analytics redirect prefixes from episode URLs, so the request goes straight to your audio host. P3 is not an ad blocker: dynamic ad insertion hosts are passed through untouched, and ads that are part of the audio play as normal.

If you rely on prefix-based analytics, downloads from listeners with P3 on won't appear there. Your host's own logs still see every request.

Prefer that P3 leave your show alone? Email us your feed URL and we'll opt it out. P3 will then pass your episode URLs through untouched for every listener, starting with the next app and web player update. You can read exactly what P3 does on the P3 page.

A feed that doesn't look right, chapters or transcripts that don't show up, a question about our requests, or an idea for working together: email support@asc.is and include your feed URL.