If you are a podcast creator, at some point, you may need to change or update your podcast’s information, including its feed URL and cover artwork.
We do not have accounts for authors or even a user-facing dashboard where you can manage your podcast’s information on our platform. In most cases, our system picks up changes you make directly on your feeds. The process is automatic, although it does not run immediately after you make changes.
If you still have access to your old RSS feed, you can add a redirect to it so that our system is able to automatically update your podcast listing to use the new feed URL. You can find more information about this in the following support article: Podcast feed redirection.
Please don’t submit your new feed to Pocket Casts as a new podcast. Pocket Casts treats each feed URL as a separate podcast listing. If your new feed is submitted while your old feed is still listed and isn’t redirected, your show can end up with two listings, and listeners will see it twice in search. Your existing listeners would stay on the old listing, which won’t receive the episodes you publish on your new feed. Redirecting your old feed, or contacting us as described below, keeps your show in a single listing.
If you no longer have access to your old RSS feed, we will be happy to look into making the necessary changes for you. Please reach out to us with the following information:
- Old RSS feed URL
- New RSS feed URL
If your show appears twice in Pocket Casts (two listings for the same podcast, or a duplicate podcast in search), it’s usually because you moved to a new podcast host and both your old feed and your new feed were added to Pocket Casts. Each feed gets its own listing, so this isn’t a bug.
If you still have access to your old feed, add a redirect to it as described in Podcast feed redirection. In many cases, our system then combines the two listings automatically the next time it checks your old feed. If the duplicate doesn’t go away, or you can’t add a redirect, please contact us with your old and new RSS feed URLs (or the Pocket Casts links to both listings). We can combine the listings so that listeners following either copy keep receiving your new episodes, and only one copy appears in search.
Our system automatically picks up changes to your podcast artwork, although not immediately.
If you’re checking on the Android or iOS apps, you may need to give the app up to 24 hours to update automatically. You can hurry the device along, however, by going to Profile > Settings (gear icon) > Appearance, and clicking “Refresh All Podcast Artwork.”
If you’re on the web app, you’ll need to clear the browser cache for the new artwork to appear.
If you’re still not seeing your new artwork in Pocket Casts after some time, please get in touch with the following information:
- RSS feed URL
- A description of the old artwork
- A description of the new artwork or even a file that shows us what it should look like
Pocket Casts renders a limited set of HTML from your podcast’s RSS feed, so paragraphs, links, lists, and basic text styling in your podcast description and your episode show notes can appear as you intended.
We filter the HTML on our servers when we parse your feed. Any tag that is not on the lists below is removed, though in most cases the text inside it is kept, so your wording is not lost. script and style tags are always removed.
In version 7.80, we improved how your podcast description is displayed on the podcast page when listeners tap the down arrow in the upper right and expand the text.
Your podcast description (the show-level description in your feed) supports these HTML tags:
- Headings:
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 - Text blocks:
p,br,blockquote,ol,ul,li - Links:
a - Text styling:
b,strong,i,em,u,s,strike,sub,sup,small,cite,code,dfn,samp
Only a few attributes are kept: href on a, cite on blockquote, start and reversed on ol, type on ol and ul, and dir, lang, and title on any supported tag. Every other attribute is removed, so styling with style or class will not carry through. Links can use http, https, or mailto.
Images and tables are not supported in podcast descriptions. If your description contains no HTML at all, we convert its line breaks to br tags so its layout is preserved. If it does contain HTML, line breaks are treated as ordinary whitespace, so use p or br tags to control spacing.
Episode show notes support everything listed above, plus a wider set of tags:
- Images:
img,figure,figcaption - Tables:
table,caption,thead,tbody,tfoot,tr,th,td,col,colgroup - Description lists:
dl,dt,dd - More text elements:
pre,q,abbr,bdo,del,ins,hgroup,kbd,mark,ruby,rp,rt,time,var,wbr
Show notes also keep src, alt, width, height, and align on img, the standard table attributes (colspan, rowspan, scope, summary, and width), datetime on del, ins, and time, and cite on blockquote, del, ins, and q. Links in show notes can also use ftp.
Because the Pocket Casts apps for iOS and Android and the web player each render text a little differently, the exact appearance of your formatting can vary between platforms. We recommend keeping your markup simple and checking how it looks on more than one device.
If you find that something still needs to be updated in your podcast’s listing on Pocket Casts, we’re here to help you check if it’s an update we can make. Please contact us with as many details as you can provide, including:
- RSS feed URL
- The old information that needs to be updated
- The new information you’d like to see
