U.S. users have just a few more days to make the transition from Google Podcasts as the company moves forward with the process of discontinuing the service globally.
Google is currently sending in-app notifications to users in the U.S. that starting April 2nd they will no longer be able to use Google Podcasts and is recommending to export subscriptions to YouTube Music.
The Google Podcasts streaming service launched six years ago. It's app has more than 500 million downloads on Google Play and apart from offering a large selection of podcasts it also allows subscribing to favorite channels, downloading and playing on various devices.
The service integrates with Google's ecosystem, providing users with personalized recommendations based on interests, listening history, and preferences.
In September 2023, Google announced that the Podcasts app and platform would be discontinued in 2024, and podcasts would be integrated into YouTube Music, consolidating Google's audio services into a single platform.
At the time, Google stated that the decision to discontinue Google Podcasts and migrate to YouTube aligned with user behavior and preferences, as its data indicated higher engagement of podcast listeners on YouTube than on Podcasts.
Though YouTube Music provides basic podcast listening functionality, Google Podcasts users find it too bloated for their taste, lacking podcast-specific search and sorting filters, and missing the app's dedicated discovery and management features.
At the moment, only U.S.-based users are seeing the service discontinuation notice with the April 2nd deadline.
According to an alert on the YouTube Music support page (Internet Archive) for importing subscriptions from Google Podcasts, the service is set to phase out completely this July.
Google Podcasts users are recommended to export their subscriptions from the app directly to the YouTube Music library.
If users want a different podcast listening platform, they can download the RSS feeds for the shows and upload them to the preferred service that supports the OPML file format.
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