Google Podcasts shuts down tomorrow, April 2

Enlarge / A spooky Halloween display from Google’s Seattle campus. (credit: Dana Fried)

RIP Google Podcasts. Google’s self-branded podcasting service shuts down tomorrow, April 2, and existing users have until July to export any subscriptions that are still on the service. Google originally announced the shutdown back in September and has been plastering shutdown notices all over the Google Podcasts site and app for a few days now.

Google Podcasts was Google’s third podcasting service, after Google Listen (2009–2012) and Google Play Music Podcasts (2016–2020). The shutdown will clear the deck for Google’s media consolidation under the YouTube brand with podcasting app #4: YouTube Podcasts.

Google Podcasts has always had an awkward life, and despite an eight-year existence, it has only been a viable podcasting app for maybe half that time. The project grew out of the Google Search team’s desire to index podcast content. That started in 2016 when searching for a podcast would show a player embedded right in the Google Search results. This only worked on google.com and on the Android search app.