Google Podcasts is to close, the company has announced. YouTube Music will allow you to add any RSS feed to the app, so you can continue to listen to your favorite shows in YouTube Music as a replacement.
The company is working on a migration tool. They’ve also communicated the upcoming closure to listeners.
Google Podcasts will close “later in 2024”; it launched in June 2018. The player was in all Android phones, but it wasn’t always installed as a separate app.
The founder, Zack Reneau-Wedeen, left in Sept 2021; the app only achieved a lower than 5% market share in downloads.
It was the third attempt by Google at a podcast player; the first, a 20%-time project Google Listen app was based on Google Reader; then there was a US-only launch of podcasts within Google Play Music, which cached audio.
Their fourth attempt, YouTube Music, still has yet to add podcasts in many countries.