Google Podcasts has officially gone the way of Google Play Music and has been integrated directly into YouTube. As of April 2, Google Podcasts ceased to function in the US.
Fortunately, you still have some time to migrate your subscriptions to another service. Google will allow you to migrate your data to either YouTube Music or the podcast app of your choice using the Google Podcasts app through July.
Google Podcasts first launched in 2018. Before its launch, podcasts were tied with Google Play Music. When it came out, it focused primarily on Google Assistant integration and using information gathered from your listening habits to offer more personalized recommendations. The service improved over time and became one of the most popular podcast apps, boasting over 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone.
Google revealed the reasoning for integrating Google Podcasts with YouTube Music in its announcement last year.
“We’ll be helping Google Podcasts users move over to Podcasts in YouTube Music,” Google said in September in a blog post. “This matches what listeners and podcasters are already doing: according to Edison, about 23% of weekly podcast users in the US say YouTube is their most frequently used service, versus just 4% for Google Podcasts.”
Google Podcasts will officially enter the Google graveyard at the tender age of six years. Folks outside of the US will still have access to Google Podcasts for a little while longer — the company didn’t share when the rest of the world would lose access, but it’ll be sometime in 2024.
Here’s how to move your Google Podcasts subscriptions to other services.
