As you might have seen, Spotify needs to handle your whole podcasts in addition to your music. If you’ve by no means tried out Spotify as a podcast participant—otherwise you’ve simply dipped into the performance with out actually taking a full take a look at what’s on provide—right here’s methods to use the cellular and desktop apps to handle your podcasts.

For some, having podcasts proper alongside their music goes to be a bonus; for others, having separate apps for every sort of media goes to really feel much more logical. What’s clear is that Spotify may be very eager on locking customers into its podcast expertise—and that extends to unique reveals that aren’t out there in different podcast gamers.

Getting began

The podcast a part of Spotify is tough to overlook: You might have a number of podcast suggestions displaying up as quickly as you open the house display of the app. Tap or click on the Search button and among the many choices out there, it’s best to see a Podcasts class, which is a method of discovering new content material.

Unfortunately on the time of writing there’s no method to import an inventory of podcasts you’re already listening to into the Spotify app. Not solely do it’s a must to manually discover all of the podcasts you at present hearken to, you even have to determine which episode you’re at present as much as. Use the Search web page to search out particular podcasts to hearken to, and choose Follow from the podcast itemizing web page to subscribe.

You’ll additionally see a cog icon on every podcast itemizing web page within the cellular app: Tap this after which Mark as performed, and you may verify off episodes that you simply’ve already listened to. As quickly as you subscribe, latest episodes and new episodes seem underneath New Episodes within the Your Library part on cellular, and you may also faucet Your Library and Podcasts & Shows to see the whole lot without delay. Strangely sufficient, there’s no New Episodes shortcut on the desktop, which looks like one thing of an oversight.

If you’re utterly new to this complete podcasting get together, you’ll be able to flick through podcasts from the Search web page, or you’ll be able to attempt this discovery tool that Spotify has put collectively on the net. Answer a number of questions in your podcast listening habits and tastes, and also you’ll be given a personalised advice to check out.

Managing your podcasts

We’ve already talked about the New Episodes playlist that will get created for you when you begin following a number of podcasts, however you may also discover your subscriptions by going to Your Library and Podcasts & Shows on cellular, or Your Library and Podcasts within the desktop app. Select any podcast and episode to start out listening.

In varied locations within the Spotify apps—akin to whenever you drill down right into a podcast’s listing of episodes—you’ll see two buttons subsequent to particular person episodes. The add button (a plus icon) provides an episode to a playlist referred to as Your Episodes, which you will discover in your library on desktop and cellular. The obtain icon (an arrow icon) performs the identical operate but additionally downloads the episode, so you’ll be able to hearken to it offline. As with music, downloading podcasts requires a premium subscription.

You don’t have to avoid wasting podcasts to the Your Episodes playlist, however that’s the default. Tap or click on the three dots subsequent to a podcast episode so as to add it to a distinct playlist in your library, or (on cellular) so as to add it to the present queue. You can mix podcasts and songs collectively in the identical playlists when you’d prefer to.

Individual podcast episodes might be added to playlists and added to the queue with out you having to decide to following the podcast—simply use whichever buttons are related as earlier than. This is helpful if you wish to check out a podcast with out subscribing to it, or there’s just one specific episode of a podcast you’re eager about.

Playing your podcasts

Start enjoying a podcast and the paintings seems simply as it will as when you had been listening to music. Some of the choices can be found—you should use the progress bar to seek for a selected cut-off date for instance, however there are additionally podcast-specific capabilities too. To see the present notes on cellular, faucet the three dots (high proper) and Go to episode; on desktop, click on on the episode title within the backside left nook.

Tap or click on the 1x button to vary the playback velocity of your podcast. You’ll additionally discover buttons for leaping backwards or skipping forwards 15 seconds. On cellular, there’s a lunar crescent icon on the precise: Tap on this and you can begin a sleep timer, which can cease playback mechanically after a sure time. The out there instances vary from 5 minutes to an hour, or you’ll be able to go to the tip of the episode.

As with music, you’ll be able to faucet or click on the little gadgets icon (it seems like a miniature speaker) to beam podcast playback to a different piece of {hardware} the place you’ve obtained Spotify put in and also you’re signed into your account. If you’ve simply obtained residence from a stroll, for instance, you’ll be able to open up your laptop computer and restart podcast playback on that machine.

The closing choice on the playback display on cellular is the share choice—you should use this to ship another person the identical podcast (on Spotify) through no matter app you select, and you may embody a timestamp to start out from as nicely if you’d like. Another method to share a podcast is to faucet the three dots (high proper), which brings up its particular Spotify QR-like code: The particular person you’re sharing with then has to faucet Search and the digicam icon in their very own Spotify app so the episode might be shared.