What's New in YourPods
Every feature, fix, and improvement — documented for the detail-oriented.
Version 26.8.0
August 2026
Episode Notes
Save a timestamped note anywhere in an episode, then export the lot as Markdown, into an Obsidian vault, or to your own Nextcloud. Free, on-device, and no account required.
Chapters from the Audio File
YourPods now reads chapters embedded in the audio file — ID3 in MP3, chapter atoms in MP4 and M4A — shows chapter artwork while you listen, and lets you search inside a transcript.
Five New Languages
German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch — across the app, Apple Watch, widgets, Siri, and VoiceOver, with each language's own plural and duration rules.*
P3 Covers More Trackers
P3 now removes 39 tracking prefixes across 25 analytics services, up from 31 hardcoded patterns, and recognizes a tracker by its host instead of one fixed path. Still off until you turn it on.
Sync That Keeps Your Place
Played state travels between devices, mark-as-played retries until the server confirms it, and per-episode version checks stop two devices overwriting each other's position.
*Translations are AI-assisted. YourPods says so once, the first time it opens in a language other than English, and links to support so you can report anything that reads wrong.
New Features
17Episode Notes
Save a timestamped note at any point in an episode — from the player, the mini player, or episode detail. Give a note a color and comma-separated tags, then browse everything you've written from the Notes button in the Library toolbar, grouped by episode and filterable by tag. Free for everyone, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Notes from Chapters and Transcripts
Long-press a chapter or a transcript line and choose Add Note. The note is stamped at that exact position and keeps the chapter title, or the quoted transcript line, as context.
Markdown Export
Export your notes as a single Markdown file with YAML frontmatter, grouped by episode, with timestamps, chapter titles, quoted transcript lines, and hashtags. Send it anywhere through the share sheet. Writing notes and exporting them is free for everyone, with no account.
Obsidian Export
Send notes straight into an Obsidian vault. Set your vault name and mode in Settings → Notes: write each note into a "YourPods Notes" folder filed under the show, append to today's daily note (which needs the Advanced URI plugin), or hand a .md file to the share sheet. iPhone and iPad.
Nextcloud Notes
If you sync with your own Nextcloud server, your notes can go there too — as Markdown files in a folder you choose, or as real notes in the Nextcloud Notes app, filed under a YourPods category per podcast. On demand or automatically on every sync, using the credentials you already saved.
Now Playing Widget
A Home Screen widget in small, medium, and large. Artwork, episode and show title, and a progress bar with a live-counting elapsed time. Medium and large add play/pause, skip back, and skip forward; large also lists the next four episodes in your Up Next queue.
Library Episodes View
The Library's overflow menu now switches between Podcasts and Episodes. Episodes is one flat list across every show that honors the All, Downloaded, Unplayed, and In Progress filters, arranged Newest First, By Date (Today / This Week / Earlier), or By Show. Each row gets an add-or-remove-from-queue button.
Episode Search
Library search now searches episode titles across every subscription, not just show names. Matches appear in their own Episodes section, and a Search Details pill extends the search to episode descriptions with the matching text shown as a snippet.
Auto-Hide Unplayed Episodes
Optionally hide unplayed episodes published more than 7 to 90 days ago, on launch and on every refresh. Downloaded and part-listened episodes are left alone, and a per-podcast override can raise or disable the threshold. Settings keeps a per-podcast log with Undo All for 30 days.
Episode Swipe Actions
Swipe an episode row to run an action. Settings → Episode Swipe Actions assigns Add to Queue, Play Next, Mark as Played, Hide, or Play Now to the left and right swipe — right is Play Next and left is Add to Queue by default. Works in podcast detail, the Library Episodes view, and the full Recently Updated list.
Share Links
Share Episode, Share Podcast, and Share Position now produce a share.yourpods.app link instead of pasting the show's website or the raw audio URL. Share Position bakes in your current timestamp, and the caption reads "Episode at 5:42 — Podcast". Links are minted with Apple's device attestation — App Attest on iPhone and iPad, DeviceCheck on Mac — so no account is required, and if a link can't be created the share still goes out as plain text.
Opening a Share
A YourPods episode or podcast link now opens in the app. If you already follow the show you land on the episode sheet, or on the show in your Library. If you don't, a preview sheet shows the artwork, title, and description with Play, Play from the shared timestamp, Add to Queue, and Follow Show.
Sign in with Nextcloud
Connect a Nextcloud server by logging in through your browser instead of hand-creating an app password. Your credentials stay in the browser, and a Re-authenticate with Nextcloud button in the profile editor refreshes access when it expires. Manual app-password entry is still there for servers that don't support it.
Liquid Glass
On iOS 26 the mini player, player controls, Home cards, search cards, and stat cards render with Apple's Liquid Glass material. A new Glass Style setting (Settings → Appearance) picks between Classic, Clear Glass, Glass, and High Contrast Glass. Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast override the choice automatically, and before iOS 26 the app keeps its classic materials.
AirPlay in the Mini Player
An output picker now sits beside the skip-forward button. Tap it to send audio to AirPlay speakers or a Bluetooth device — the icon highlights while an external route is active.
Pause on Disconnect
Playback pauses when your headphones are unplugged or a Bluetooth or AirPlay device drops, instead of continuing on the speaker. Switching from headphones to another output doesn't pause.
Control Center Media Suggestions
Episodes you play are donated to the system, so YourPods can appear in Control Center and Lock Screen media suggestions with the episode's title, show, and artwork.
Chapters & Transcripts
7Embedded Chapters
YourPods now reads chapters embedded in the audio file itself — ID3 chapters in MP3, chapter atoms in MP4 and M4A — so mainstream shows that ship chapters in the file finally show them. Embedded chapters win over feed chapters because they stay aligned with the audio actually playing, including after dynamic ad insertion.
Chapter Artwork
Chapter images now show while you listen. The full player and mini-player artwork switch to the current chapter's image, and the lock screen, Control Center, and CarPlay Now Playing image update at every chapter boundary. Chapter thumbnails appear in the chapter list too.
One Chapter List Everywhere
Chapters are resolved once for the playing episode and shared by the full player, mini player, Home now-playing card, chapter list, CarPlay chapter buttons, and Siri, instead of each screen fetching its own copy. Chapters for a restored episode load at launch, before you press play.
Transcript Search
Search inside a transcript from the transcript sheet. Matches are highlighted, the toolbar shows "3 of 12" with up and down buttons to jump between them, and auto-scroll pauses while you're searching. Tapping a match still seeks there.
More Transcript Formats
Transcripts published as Markdown or RTF now render as readable text, alongside SRT, VTT, JSON, plain text, and HTML. Format is decided from the type the feed declares, then the URL, then the file's contents — and a mislabeled transcript falls back to plain text instead of the Transcript button quietly disappearing.
Late-Published Transcripts
An episode queued before its transcript was published now shows the transcript once the feed has it.
Cleaner HTML Transcripts
A repair: HTML transcripts no longer leak page titles, stylesheet, or script text into the body, and curly quotes, dashes, and numeric character codes decode correctly instead of showing as raw entities.
Siri & Shortcuts
732 Shortcuts Actions
Up from 13. New ones include next and previous chapter, restart episode, extend the sleep timer, check for new episodes, download your queue or a show's latest episode, mark played and play next, clear the queue with a confirmation prompt, open a show or your queue, and bookmark the moment you're listening to. Ten of them carry "Hey Siri" voice phrases — Apple's cap.
Actions That Return Values
Get Current Episode, Get Queue, Get Podcasts, What's Next, Get Listening Stats, and Get Share Link hand back real values you can chain into your own automations. Episodes carry title, show, position, remaining time, played state, and a deep link.
Pick a Show, Don't Type It
Play Podcast and Play Latest Episode now take a real show from your library instead of typed text, with a picker showing each show's artwork and author, and match what you say against your subscriptions.
Siri That Actually Answers
Every voice command runs the real action and waits for it to finish before Siri replies, so playback controls work even when the app was suspended. Siri reads back what actually happened — the episode and show it started, how many episodes are in your queue, "Up next is …", your listening minutes, or an honest reason when it can't help. "What's playing?" now names the episode instead of telling you to open the app.
Bookmark This Moment
Ask Siri or run a shortcut to save a timestamped note on whatever is playing, with optional dictated text. It works without opening the app, so it can hang off a Back Tap or an automation.
Get Share Link
Ask Siri or run a Shortcut to get a link to what you're playing, stamped at the current moment, without opening the app.
Siri & Shortcuts Settings
A new Settings screen lists every voice phrase with an example of what to say, shows tips for bookmarking, playing your queue, and checking for new episodes, and opens the Shortcuts app straight to YourPods' actions.
Localization
6Five New Languages
YourPods is now available in German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch alongside English, with over 1,080 strings translated in each. The app follows the language you set for it in iOS Settings or macOS System Settings.
Every Surface Translated
The Apple Watch app is translated too — its player, queue, chapter list, sleep timer, and download screens — as are the Home Screen widgets, the Lock Screen Live Activity, and the watch complication.
Siri in Your Language
The voice phrases for playback, your queue, skipping, playback speed, and the sleep timer are translated, and everything Siri says back is translated too.
Localized VoiceOver
VoiceOver labels, hints, and actions are translated as well, so a screen reader speaks the app in your own language on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and in widgets.
Grammar and Formatting That Fits
Episode counts and durations use each language's own plural rules, so you get "1 Folge" and "12 Folgen" rather than one shape for both, and durations read naturally per language — a two-and-a-half-hour episode shows as "2 Std. 30 Min." in German instead of "2h 30m".
Translation Notice
The first time YourPods opens in a language other than English, it explains that the translations are AI-assisted and may read a little off, and links to support so you can report anything wrong. Settings gains a Language & Translation section with the resolved language, a shortcut to where iOS or macOS lets you change it, and a link to report a problem.
Apple Watch & CarPlay
14Sleep Timer on Apple Watch
15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, or end of episode, from the watch player. The button shows the time remaining, and the timer still stops playback if the episode is buffering when it expires.
Playback Speed on Apple Watch
Tap the speed button to cycle 0.75× through 2×. The choice is remembered on the watch — long-press to go back to matching your iPhone.
Now Playing Page on the Watch
The watch app now includes the system Now Playing page alongside the player, for Digital Crown volume, transport controls, and the output-device picker.
Watch Skip Buttons Match Your iPhone
Skip back and skip forward use your configured intervals instead of a fixed 15 and 30 seconds — on the watch player, the iPhone remote screen, and the watch's Now Playing controls.
Watch Library Browsing
A repair: opening a podcast on the watch returned a list that spun on "Loading episodes…" forever, because the iPhone and the watch disagreed on the payload field names. Episode lists load now, and the screen shows a real "No Episodes", "Couldn't Load Episodes" (tap to retry), or "iPhone Not Reachable" state instead of spinning.
Watch Complications
A repair: complications now show what's playing, what's up next, and your queue count. Nothing ever wrote that data before, so they were always empty. Playing, pausing, or a queue change on your phone updates them, and identical state is skipped so the watch's refresh budget isn't wasted.
Watch Background Refresh
A repair: the watch's scheduled refresh never ran — the task was scheduled without the identifier the handler matches on, and any fresh queue the iPhone replied with was discarded. The watch queue updates in the background now.
Watch Progress Survives an Unreachable iPhone
Position updates, mark-as-played, and queue removals from the watch are queued and delivered when the iPhone comes back, instead of being dropped when it was asleep or out of range.
Watch Downloads
A repair: re-downloading an episode after relaunching the watch app created a second copy of the same file — filenames are deterministic now, so it doesn't. Audio that no episode references anymore is cleaned up automatically, while episodes you downloaded yourself are kept until you delete them. Downloads started from Recently Updated or a podcast's episode list correctly show as downloaded.
Watch Battery
Auto-advancing with the screen off no longer restarts the once-per-second progress timer for the rest of the session. Artwork is decoded at a bounded size, downloads no longer hold the radio open indefinitely, and the iPhone stops re-sending the whole queue on every position tick.
Watch Playback Errors
Starting playback with no headphones connected says "Connect Bluetooth headphones and try again" instead of a raw error, and a failed stream releases the player instead of leaving the watch stuck. Chapter times past an hour show as 1:05:00 rather than 65:00.
Watch Accessibility
Queue rows, Now Playing on iPhone, Library, chapters, and the speed and sleep-timer buttons on the watch have spoken VoiceOver labels and values, with times read as durations rather than digits.
CarPlay Chapters
A repair: the CarPlay chapter-skip buttons only recognized chapters from a separate chapters file or the episode description, so shows with chapters embedded in the audio or inline in the feed did nothing. CarPlay uses the same chapter list as the rest of the app now.
CarPlay Offline Now Playing
A repair: tapping an episode in the car with no signal used to show a black Now Playing screen with a creeping progress bar. It now shows the title, your saved position, the episode length, cover art — cached, or a YourPods placeholder instead of the system gray note — and a paused state with an honest "No connection" message.
P3 Privacy Preserving Playback
4More Trackers Blocked
P3 now removes 39 tracking prefixes covering 25 analytics services, up from 31 hardcoded patterns. The list ships with the app as a snapshot of the OPAWG public prefix registry plus a curated supplement, adding Blubrry, Podkite, Podder, Podcards, Glystn, Voxalyze, and Médiamétrie, plus extra hosts for services already covered. P3 stays off until you turn it on, globally or per-podcast.
P3 Keeps Working When Trackers Change Their URLs
Instead of one hardcoded path pattern per service, P3 recognizes a tracker by its host and then finds the real audio URL by scanning the path. URLs that were silently missed because a service used a different path shape are stripped now, and any subdomain of gum.fm or proxycast.org is covered rather than just one.
More Tracking Parameters Removed
Alongside utm_ parameters, P3 strips the AdsWizz attribution parameters awCollectionId and awEpisodeId, while signed playback parameters such as token and expires are left untouched so playback still works.
P3 No Longer Rewrites Dynamic Ad-Insertion URLs
Hosts such as Megaphone and AdsWizz serve the audio themselves with ads stitched in, so there is no inner URL to reveal, and rewriting them risked pointing playback at something that isn't the episode. P3 passes those URLs through untouched. P3 is a privacy tool, not an ad blocker.
Sync & Reliability
11Your place in an episode is the thing sync is for — this release makes it hold:
- Finishing or marking an episode played on one device marks it played on the others, and un-marking it somewhere else clears the played state here instead of it coming back on the next sync
- Marking an episode played goes into a durable outbox that retries on every sync until the server confirms it, so a dropped connection, a background kill, or an expired token no longer silently loses it — and it no longer produces a sync conflict against your own action moments later
- Playback positions are pushed with a per-episode version check, so two devices can't quietly overwrite each other's place — if both are playing an episode each keeps its own position, if only one is that one wins, and if neither is, your conflict setting decides — so you are only asked when there is a real standoff
- The conflict sheet says whose position each side is, shows "Played" instead of a bogus end-of-episode timestamp, reads "All Local" and "All from Server", counts how many times a conflict has come back, offers an "Always use this choice" toggle, and describes every row and button to VoiceOver
- Choosing a position writes it authoritatively to the server, so picking the earlier of two positions is no longer quietly refused and re-offered — a conflict the server has already retired refreshes the list instead of leaving a dead prompt, and resolving while offline still applies on this device
- Re-syncing after dismissing a conflict no longer invents a second one with the device and server positions swapped
- Switching episodes records the exact position you left the previous one at — before, it reported the position the episode had when it started playing, so anything you listened to in that session could be lost to other devices
- Positions sent from Apple Watch are saved even when that episode isn't loaded on the phone, so resuming on iPhone picks up where the watch left off and never rewinds
- When a show moves to a new feed address, your Accept or Keep decision is confirmed with the server before the library changes, so a failure leaves the prompt in place to retry — and declining stops the prompt reappearing on every sync
- Listening positions, pending actions, and sync baselines are stored per sync profile, so switching between a gPodder server and a YourPods account can't carry one profile's positions into another's conflict detection or push them to the wrong server; existing data is migrated to the active profile on first launch
- Export My Data downloads everything a YourPods account has synced — subscriptions, playback history, settings — as a JSON file from the profile editor, on Free and Pro alike (gPodder, Nextcloud, and Vault Mode libraries already export as OPML)
Performance
5Less work per sync, and less of it on the main thread:
- YourPods accounts pull only what changed since the last sync instead of re-fetching the whole listening history; hidden and played state arrive in the same request as positions, one fewer call per sync; and independent steps run in parallel. A sync with nothing new writes almost nothing to the database instead of rewriting every unchanged episode, and the heavy writes moved off the main thread
- Background refresh syncs playback positions, played state, and the queue before refreshing feeds, so the roughly 30 seconds iOS allows are spent on what you notice first — it stops cleanly at step boundaries when time runs out, and a window of changes is only marked received once it has actually been applied, so an interrupted sync re-delivers instead of dropping
- YourPods sends ETag and If-Modified-Since with each feed request and understands a 304 Not Modified reply, so a refresh only re-downloads feeds that actually published something
- The iPad app on a Mac pulls the latest state about two seconds after you switch back to the window instead of waiting out a five-minute debounce, and an in-progress sync is no longer cancelled every time the window loses focus — which is why it could sit on stale now-playing and queue state
- Database writes are held open by a background-task assertion so iOS can't kill the app mid-write when it suspends, a save is skipped rather than risked when the system grants no background time, and a corrupt WAL index file left by an earlier crash is cleared at launch, breaking the crash-on-launch loop it caused
Bug Fixes
10Repairs to things that were quietly wrong:
- Downloaded episodes play in airplane mode — a downloaded episode could still try to stream and stall when the queue advanced with no network
- Marking the episode you're listening to as played from Home or an episode list now advances to the next episode in Up Next, or stops when Up Next is empty
- A new date parser handles date-only pubDates, timestamps without seconds, asctime, full month names, "Sept", slash-separated dates, European time zone names, trailing zone comments, and fractional seconds — episodes from those feeds now show the correct date, sort correctly, and are no longer skipped by Recently Updated
- Episode lists no longer reshuffle when episodes share a publish timestamp or have none — ties break by season, episode number, and the feed's own document order, consistently on the podcast screen, in CarPlay, and when picking the next episode
- Recently Updated gives every show a slot before a prolific show fills the rest; the window widened from two to three months, a "+N more" card opens a full All Recent Episodes list, and how many episodes it shows is now a setting — 9 to 36, default 27, up from a fixed 12
- Hide and Unhide are now in the context menus and VoiceOver actions of Home's episode cards, the mini player, Up Next rows including the currently playing episode, and the podcast preview sheet
- Episode rows show a Queued badge when the episode is already in Up Next, and offer Remove from Queue instead of Add to Queue
- The sleep timer sheet scrolls and can be dragged to full height, so its controls stay reachable at large text sizes
- The watch complication and Lock Screen widgets no longer paint a solid blue block behind their content
- The Your Data & Privacy screen lists episode notes among the data stored for a YourPods account
Free, and Staying Free
6Nothing on the self-hosted path changed price, and nothing is going to:
- gPodder and Nextcloud sync are subscription-free — and always will be. So is local Vault Mode. There is no account to create, no trial, and no feature behind a paywall on that path
- Episode notes, notes export to Markdown and Obsidian, notes written into your own Nextcloud, P3, transcripts, chapters, CarPlay, and the Apple Watch app all work without any YourPods account at all
- This release made the self-hosted path better, not smaller: browser-based Sign in with Nextcloud, notes written to your own server, and listening positions kept separate per sync profile
- The optional YourPods Sync account stays free for subscriptions and listen positions. YourPods Pro adds the web player, notes sync and web editing, and Up Next handoff
- Up Next handoff is the one Pro-only sync — gPodder and Nextcloud servers carry your subscriptions and listening positions, which is what the gPodder protocol covers, but they do not carry a queue
- Export My Data — download everything a YourPods account has synced as a JSON file from the profile editor, on free and Pro accounts alike. gPodder, Nextcloud, and Vault Mode libraries already export as OPML
Platform & Requirements
3What this release needs, and what its version number means:
- iOS 18 or later — this release raises the minimum iPhone and iPad requirement from iOS 17 to iOS 18. macOS 14 and watchOS 10 are unchanged
- Liquid Glass needs iOS 26 — before that the app keeps its previous materials
- Calendar versioning — version numbers move from the 2.0.x semver line to yy.mm.vv, for the year, the month, and the release's index within that month. 26.8.0 is what 2.0.5 would have been
Version 2.0.4
June 2026
P3 Privacy Mode
Strips 30+ tracking domains from episode URLs before playback. Enable globally or per-podcast. Green shield on Now Playing when active.
New Episode Notifications
Local push alerts with per-podcast controls. Stale episode delivery ensures you never miss an update. 100% local — no push servers.*
Background Sync Fixed
The toggle, interval, and re-scheduling all fixed. Reliable overnight sync and notification delivery — the way it should have always worked.
50+ Fixes
Incremental sync, 6× faster refresh, 95% less disk I/O, eliminated audio engine data races, and dozens of sync/stability improvements.
*Due to iOS background limitations, notifications might not always fire. Data never leaves your device.
New Features
9P3 (Privacy Preserving Playback)
Strips known tracking prefixes from episode URLs before your episode even starts playing. Enable globally or per-podcast. Green shield icon on Now Playing when active. (Rebuilt in 26.8.0 — see above.)
New Episode Notifications
Local push notifications when background refresh discovers new episodes. Per-podcast controls: notify for all or pick your favorites. Stale episode delivery ensures you never miss an episode, even when iOS skips a background refresh. 100% local — nothing sent to any push notification server.*
Hidden Episodes
Hide episodes to declutter your feed without affecting listening stats. "Hide Older Episodes" for batch cleanup on large back catalogs. Hidden state syncs across devices via YourPods Sync.
Clear Queue
One-tap clear from the Up Next overflow menu. "Clear Up Next" keeps the current episode playing, "Clear Everything" stops playback. Respects your queue removal preference.
Episode Activity
Chronological list of your played episodes with progress, timestamp, and device. Sort by Recent or By Podcast. Available for YourPods Sync users.
App Icon Badge
Show unplayed episode count on the app icon. Independent from notifications — configure each separately.
Custom gpodder.net Server Address
Point at your own gpodder.net-compatible instance. Self-host your sync with any server that speaks the gPodder protocol.
Download from Any Context Menu
Long-press episodes anywhere in the app to download. No need to navigate to the episode detail screen first.
watchOS: Recently Updated
The 10 most recent unplayed episodes right on your Apple Watch home screen. Tap to play directly on your wrist.
Sync & Reliability
9- Background refresh actually works now — respects your toggle, uses your refresh interval, re-schedules on every background entry
- Incremental sync — only fetches changes since your last sync, not the entire history
- Batched per-podcast settings sync — one HTTP call instead of one per podcast
- Fixed mark-as-played not syncing across devices
- Fixed episodes showing wrong position after cross-device sync
- Fixed subscription drift — podcasts deleted on another device are now properly removed
- Fixed replayed episodes finishing instantly
- AutoPilot global settings now sync to server
- Per-podcast settings (speed, skip, privacy) sync bidirectionally
Performance
4- 6× faster feed refresh (concurrent fetching with real-time progress display)
- 95% reduction in disk I/O during playback — progress, action map, and queue persistence all throttled and batched
- Faster initial playback on slow networks (10s buffer)
- Eliminated audio engine data races with compile-time MainActor isolation
Bug Fixes
8- Skip outro actually works during playback now
- Per-podcast speed no longer leaks between episodes during auto-advance
- Episode count now matches the actual RSS feed
- Fixed watchOS freezing, background crashes, and watchdog kills
- CarPlay: instant metadata display, offline artwork, network-aware recovery
- Eliminated multiple crash vectors — data races, SwiftData corruption, WAL checkpoints
- Stale episodes rotated out of RSS feeds are flagged and hidden from counts
- 50+ additional sync, stability, and crash fixes
Version 2.0.3
April 2026
Podcast Groups
Organize your library into named folders. Bulk-move shows, browse groups in CarPlay, and keep your growing collection tidy.
VoiceOver Excellence
Comprehensive VoiceOver support across the entire app — custom rotor actions, adjustable seek bars, and descriptive labels on every control.
Watch Background Audio
True background playback on Apple Watch — navigate freely while listening, with automatic episode auto-advance on your wrist.
6x Faster Sync
Feed refreshing is dramatically faster with real-time progress display. Plus new offline banners and one-tap retry for seamless connectivity.
New Features
12Podcast Groups
Tame your growing library. Organize your subscriptions into named folders (like "Tech" or "Comedy"), seamlessly bulk-move shows, and browse your groups right from your car dashboard in CarPlay.
VoiceOver Excellence
Comprehensive VoiceOver support across the entire app. Navigate episodes instantly using custom rotor actions, scrub through audio with adjustable seek bars, and hear dynamic, descriptive labels on all playback controls.
True Watch Background Audio
Play episodes directly from your Apple Watch and navigate the interface freely without your audio stopping. When an episode ends, your watch automatically advances to the next track.
Enriched OPML Export
When you export your subscriptions, your custom Podcast Groups and personalized Listening Profiles are now perfectly preserved.
Smarter Chapters
Expanded smart extraction engine recognizes even more timestamp formats from show notes, automatically generating chapters for you to navigate.
Redesigned Now Playing Card
The Now Playing card on your Home screen has been beautifully redesigned to feature larger artwork and clearer chapter displays.
Streamlined Onboarding
A brand-new welcome flow puts Vault Mode and gPodder Sync front and center, making it easier than ever for new users to get started.
Download Network Setting
Take total control of your data with the new Download Network setting. Choose exactly when AutoPilot is allowed to download new episodes: Wi-Fi Only, Cellular Only, or both.
Watch-Specific Data Saver
Toggle Wi-Fi-only downloads specifically for your Apple Watch, independent of your iPhone, to help preserve your watch's battery.
Intelligent Offline Feedback
Never guess your connection status. Beautiful new offline banners and one-tap retry buttons appear seamlessly when you lose your signal or a stream drops.
Vault to Sync Upgrade
Started local but ready for the cloud? You can now easily upgrade your local Vault Mode library to a gPodder sync server without losing a single subscription.
Lightning Fast Sync
Feed refreshing is now up to 6x faster, complete with a real-time progress display for massive libraries.
Polish & Performance
5- Added a preflight integrity check to gracefully recover from SQLite database corruption
- Fixed an issue that could cause a gray screen when opening episode details
- Fixed an issue where duplicate episodes could appear in your Up Next queue
- Resolved crashes related to large-library syncing and watchOS launches
- Removed legacy Flutter migration code to keep the app lightweight and purely native
Version 2.0.2
April 2026
Redesigned Home Screen
Discover your next listen faster. Condensed top bar and horizontally-scrollable "Recently Updated" rows put up to 12 episodes at your fingertips.
DriftOff Mode
Fall asleep to your favorite show without waking up to an empty queue. DriftOff Mode stops playback when the episode ends + Siri voice commands for hands-free control.
Watch Battery & Independence
Configurable sync intervals dramatically improve battery life. Playback resumes accurately between phone and watch — no more stalling.
Follow Along with Transcripts
Never miss a word. Read along and tap to jump exactly where you want to be — with full plain text and HTML transcript support.
Built for Podcast Enthusiasts
Seamless gPodder sync, password manager AutoFill, metadata badges, sharing, and deep respect for open podcasting standards.
New Features
19Sleep Timer "DriftOff Mode"
Choose DriftOff Mode to stop playback when the current episode finishes instead of auto-advancing to the next one — perfect for falling asleep to a single episode. Available alongside timed presets in the sleep timer sheet.
New Siri Commands
"Set sleep timer," "Cancel sleep timer," and "What's playing" — control your sleep timer and check what's playing hands-free from Siri, AirPods, or CarPlay.
Redesigned Home Screen
"YourPods" title condensed to a single inline bar with the app logo for more screen real estate. "Recently Updated" now shows two horizontally-scrollable rows of episodes (up to 12) instead of a fixed 2×3 grid.
Share Episodes & Podcasts
Share episodes, podcasts, or your current playback position from the episode detail screen or the mini player overflow menu — sends a formatted message with a link via any sharing method.
Transcript Support
Podcasts that provide text/plain or text/html transcripts (with [HH:MM:SS] timestamps) now display properly in the transcript viewer with tap-to-seek.
Configurable Apple Watch Sync Interval
Choose how often the watch sends playback progress to the phone during on-watch playback (10s, 15s, 30s, 1m, 2m). Defaults to 30 seconds for significantly improved battery life.
gPodder Session-Based Authentication
Supports gpodder.net-style session login with automatic fallback to Basic auth for Nextcloud compatibility.
Full Subscription List Import
Initial sync and re-install recovery now pull the complete subscription list from the server — not just changes since last sync.
Device Registration
The app now registers itself with gPodder-compatible servers, enabling device management and sync group visibility.
URL Rewrite Conflict Resolution
When the server rewrites feed URLs (update_urls), a conflict sheet shows old → new URLs with Accept or Keep Local buttons per-podcast.
Podcast Spec Metadata Badges
Explicit 🅴, category, complete ✓, serial, publisher, funding ❤️, Value 4 Value ⚡, and live 🔴 indicators on podcast and episode views.
Expanded Podcast Detail
Expandable description, website link, funding link, RSS feed link, language, and copyright — tap "Show More" to read the full description, and find all podcast links in one place.
Enhanced Search Results
Search results now show description previews and website links when available, with an updated search bar featuring a blue magnifying glass and visible border.
Podcast Preview Sheet
Now shows the full description and website from the RSS feed, even when the search API returns empty metadata.
AutoPilot Queue Labels
Renamed "Normal" to "Add to Queue" and "Priority" to "Play Next." Renamed "Default" to "Global Setting" in Listening Profile, with descriptive footer text.
Mark as Played from Mini Player
Tap the … menu on the Now Playing bar to mark the current episode as played and stop playback.
Password Manager Support
Password fields for sync profiles and protected feeds now trigger iOS AutoFill, so you can use 1Password, iCloud Keychain, or any password manager to fill credentials.
Remove All in Up Next
Tap the … menu in the queue to clear all upcoming episodes at once, with a confirmation dialog to prevent accidental clears.
Settings Layout Improved
About section moved to the bottom of the screen for a cleaner flow.
Bug Fixes
17- Fixed sync conflict resolution not applying the chosen position — the player now seeks to the selected position instead of continuing at the old playback point
- Fixed "Mark as Played" button on the episode detail sheet silently failing when the episode's podcast relationship wasn't loaded — now uses a 3-level fallback chain
- Fixed missing context menu and detail access on the currently playing episode in Up Next — Now Playing row now supports long press and tap to open detail sheet
- Fixed tab bar "Icon Only" display mode — previously rendered as text-only due to SwiftUI view type confusion
- Fixed Apple Watch not resuming at the correct playback position — episodes synced from iPhone now carry their play position
- Fixed auto-queue (AutoPilot) ignoring global default — podcasts with no per-podcast override were silently skipped instead of inheriting the global default
- Fixed non-square podcast artwork overflowing its frame in the full-screen player and episode detail sheet
- Fixed already-played and previously-dismissed episodes being auto-added to Up Next during feed refresh and background updates
- Fixed "Mark as Played" not removing episodes from the queue — now also removes from queue, and marking the currently-playing episode stops playback
- Fixed played episodes returning to the queue when starting a new episode
- Fixed background auto-advance stopping after an episode finishes — the app now requests background execution time from iOS before starting the next track
- Fixed auto-queue (AutoPilot) adding played/old episodes — now only queues the most recent unplayed episode per podcast
- Fixed Podcast Index search silently falling back to iTunes when API credentials are missing — now shows a clear error message
- Podcast Index API credentials are now stored securely in the iOS Keychain instead of plain UserDefaults — existing credentials migrated automatically
- Fixed live item start time not parsing from RSS feeds — dates with fractional seconds are now correctly parsed
- Fixed crash-on-launch when the local database becomes corrupted — the app now detects crash loops and automatically rebuilds the store
- Fixed Apple Watch "Now Playing" stalling when the episode is downloaded on-watch — now plays from the local file with position resumption, falls back to streaming
Version 2.0.1
March 2026
New Features
8Podcast Author on Bluetooth Displays
The "Artist" field on car dashboards, Bluetooth speakers, and headphones with displays now shows the podcast creator name (parsed from itunes:author in the RSS feed). The podcast name is shown as the "Album" field.
Password-Protected Feed Badge
Private feeds now show a padlock badge on their artwork in the Library and episode list, making protected feeds easy to identify at a glance.
Editable Feed Credentials
Feed credentials (username/password) can be edited from Podcast Settings for any protected feed. Credentials are stored securely on-device and never synced to any server.
Queue Removal Preference
Choose to just remove, remove and mark as played, or always ask when swiping to remove from Up Next. First-time removers are prompted to choose and remember their preference.
Long Press Context Menus
Context menus on episodes in the library (Play, Play Next, Add to Queue, Download, Mark as Played, Details) and on Up Next queue items (Play, Play Next, Remove from Queue, Mark as Played).
Pull-to-Refresh
Pull down on Library and Up Next views to refresh all podcast feeds for the latest episodes.
Customizable Headphone Controls
Choose what AirPods double-tap and triple-tap do: skip forward/back by your configured duration, jump to the next episode, or restart the current one.
Download Cleanup Policy
Choose when downloaded episodes are automatically deleted: once played, after 1 week, after 1 month, or never. Set a global default and override per-podcast.
Bug Fixes
17- Fix per-podcast AutoPilot setting silently overriding global default when opening Listening Profile sheet
- Fix per-podcast download cleanup policy silently overriding global default when opening Listening Profile sheet
- Fix downloads not being automatically removed when an episode finishes playing
- Fix sync conflict popup appearing every time an episode finishes playing
- Fix skip-outro putting the completed episode back in Up Next
- Fix skip-outro draining the entire queue — periodic time observer could call skipToNext() multiple times
- Migrate gPodder sync passwords from plain UserDefaults to iOS Keychain for secure storage
- Fix playback position reverting to an earlier point when quitting the app
- Wire the Conflict Resolution setting to actually control sync behavior
- Fix sync conflict wizard reappearing on every app launch
- Fix sync conflict wizard showing duplicate conflicts for the same episode
- Fix completed episodes triggering spurious sync conflicts
- Fix queue race condition where finishing an episode could mark all remaining queue episodes as "finished"
- Fix password-protected podcast feeds failing to authenticate
- Fix per-podcast skip intro/outro and playback speed settings (Listening Profile) not applying during auto-advance
- Fix priority AutoPilot episodes not always appearing at the top of Up Next
- Fix race condition where finishing one episode could auto-complete the entire Up Next queue
Improvements
13- Default all user-entered URLs to HTTPS when no scheme is specified
- Add conflict resolution UI when sync strategy is set to "Ask"
- Sync conflict wizard now shows episode name, podcast name, and album art
- Sync conflict resolution buttons redesigned with clear "Use Device" / "Use Server" labels
- Sync conflict wizard tracks recurring conflicts and shows "Seen X times" badge
- Episode downloads now use background URLSession — downloads continue when app is backgrounded
- URL resolution requests are now coalesced — multiple concurrent requests share a single network call
- CarPlay image cache now uses NSCache for automatic memory management
- Queue state is periodically persisted every 30 seconds as a safety net
- Queue persistence timer fires during UI scrolling, preventing stale state
- Background download completion events are now properly delivered to the app
- HTTPS is now the default for all server URLs
- Auth credentials are stripped from URL redirect chains when crossing domains or downgrading HTTPS
Version 2.0
Built from scratch in native Swift for iOS, watchOS, and CarPlay.
Faster, more reliable, and deeply integrated with the Apple ecosystem.
Core Features
New in 2.0
Siri Voice Commands
10Design & Polish
15- Per-podcast customization (Listening Profile): playback speed, skip intro/outro, AutoPilot, auto-download
- Sleep timer with DriftOff Mode for nighttime listening
- Listening stats: total time, episodes completed, per-podcast breakdowns
- OPML import & export for migration
- Flutter → Swift automatic migration for 1.x users
- Redesigned mini player with larger touch targets
- Interactive seek bar with expand-on-touch scrubbing
- Rich text episode descriptions (HTML stripped, dark mode aware)
- Library rows show unplayed counts with blue dot indicators
- Library filter pills: All, Downloaded, Unplayed, In Progress
- Drag-to-reorder podcasts with persistent sort order
- Context menus on episode cards for quick actions
- Tab bar display modes: Text Only, Icon Only, or Text & Icon
- Configurable start page (Home, Library, or Up Next)
- System, Light, and Dark appearance modes
Reliability
50+Over 50 reliability fixes addressing:
- Queue persistence across crashes, force quits, and cold starts
- Stream recovery with exponential backoff and retry limits
- Spurious completion detection to prevent episodes from being skipped or marked played incorrectly
- Thread-safe sync, download, and playback operations
- Correct position resume on lock screen, CarPlay, and Dynamic Island after cold launch
- Per-profile sync timestamps so multiple accounts don't interfere with each other
Ready to listen?
The YourPods app is a one-time $4.99 purchase — every feature included, no ads, no tracking. Syncing with your own Nextcloud or gPodder server is free. Pro is optional.