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Info for Podcasters
Overcast works with the open, standard world of podcasts. It’s the kind of podcast app that used to be the only kind.
There’s no terms to agree to, no rights to give up, and no loss of control over your podcast or its distribution. Overcast parses your RSS feed, downloads episodes directly from your servers to each listener, and doesn’t interfere with your stats or content at all.
Inclusion in Overcast
There’s no separate submission process to be included in Overcast. Simply submit your podcast to Apple Podcasts , and it will typically show up in Overcast’s search within 1–2 days.
If your podcast is already listed in Apple Podcasts , but isn’t showing up in Overcast, you may add it manually here .
Overcast listeners can always subscribe to any public podcast feed by entering its feed URL, but URLs not known to be in Apple Podcasts won’t be included in search or recommendations.
Prohibited content
Since Overcast is a one-person company that can’t possibly review and monitor all known podcasts for spam, adult content, hate speech, and other problematic, controversial, or illegal material, Overcast uses the human-reviewed Apple Podcasts directory as its filter for what should be included in search results and recommendations.
In rare cases, a show may be included in Apple Podcasts that does not comply with its content requirements . If I’m notified that Apple’s guidelines are being significantly violated by a show that is (but should not be) in their Podcasts directory, I may manually remove it from Overcast’s search results and recommendations.
Regardless of whether a podcast is included in Overcast’s search or recommendations, listeners can always subscribe to any podcast with a public feed URL using the “Add URL” button in the app’s Add Podcast screen.
Featured podcasts
Overcast does not feature podcasts via human curation or editorial selections.
Overcast lets users “recommend” episodes with a star button. The categories in the Add Podcast screen show the top-recommended podcasts recently for each category.
If you’d like to rank higher in these, feel free to encourage your listeners to recommend your show in Overcast at a reasonable time, such as when asking for ratings or reviews in other apps.
Advertising your podcast
Overcast offers display ads for podcasts on the Now Playing screen and in the top “Ad” slot in each directory category.
Linking to your show page
Overcast’s web URLs for known shows in Apple Podcasts always take the form:
https://overcast.fm/itunes123456789
…where “123456789” is the iTunes ID for your podcast. Simply look for the corresponding number in your iTunes/Apple Podcasts URL to construct your Overcast URL.
Subscribe URL scheme in iOS
On iOS, for customers who already have Overcast installed, you can link directly to a Subscribe prompt to any RSS URL (useful for paid private feeds) using this URL scheme:
overcast://x-callback-url/add?url=...&x-success=...
url (required, URL-encoded): The podcast’s RSS feed URL.
x-success (optional, URL-encoded): A URL that the app should open after successful subscribing.
Icons for “subscribe” buttons
You may use or adapt Overcast’s icon and/or logo to create “Subscribe on Overcast” buttons that link to podcasts’ pages on Overcast.
Chapter support
Overcast displays MP3 and M4A chapter markers with titles, images, and/or link URLs.
You can easily add chapter markers to your podcasts with Forecast .
Private and password-protected feeds
Overcast specially handles feeds it recognizes as private:
URLs with HTTP Basic Auth credentials, e.g. http://user:password@site.com/…
Feeds containing the element
Private feeds are given the following restrictions:
They are excluded from search and recommendations.
They do not display Share or Recommend buttons in the app.
Their pages on the Overcast website are only shown to logged-in users who have entered their exact URLs in the “Add URL” screen (and therefore know the username and password, if present).
User-Agents
Overcast’s iOS app uses the following HTTP User-Agent string for its episode downloads:
Overcast/3.0 (+http://overcast.fm/; iOS podcast app)
The Apple Watch app uses the following User-Agent for its episode downloads:
Overcast (+http://overcast.fm/; Apple Watch podcast app)
Keep in mind that a listener may download an episode from multiple devices.
These User-Agents only apply to audio-file downloads, not requests to your feed (see the next section).
Crawling your feed
Overcast uses server-side crawling, centrally fetching your RSS feed for all Overcast listeners to deliver new episodes faster and save bandwidth.
Each listener still downloads your audio directly from your servers. Overcast does not cache, re-host, or re-serve audio to listeners, but you may see Overcast’s servers download episodes to collect metadata.
Please ensure that these servers are not blocked:
crawl1.overcast.fm