This is a script to download podcast audio files -- MP3, M4A, etc -- from a collection of feeds, without a dedicated podcast app. It will put files in a podcasts folder. You can then copy those files onto the player of your choice.
This all works because pocasting is still based on the open RSS standard, and files are hosted on public servers. This is what your podcast player is doing under the hood.
I've written this with the assumption that you're using it on an Apple computer and running commands by clicking things in Finder. You can also run the scripts here from Terminal. Both should work the same. The instructions below are mostly for Finder.
This script is going to download files from the internet and save them onto your computer. Make sure you know what you're downloading.
The author of this script is not responsible for anything that goes wrong. Use at your own risk.
Download this repository and unpack it somewhere, like your desktop.
To subscribe to feeds, you'll need the RSS link for the podcast of your choice. I've included three that my kids like -- But Why, Circle Round and Million Bazillion. A URL for each feed goes on its own line in feeds.txt, like this:
https://podcasts.vpr.net/but-why
https://rss.wbur.org/circleround/podcast
https://www.marketplace.org/feed/podcast/million-bazillion
Double click the Install.command icon. This will open a Terminal window and run a script that installs Python dependencies inside this directory. It shouldn't need any new permissions to run and won't touch anything outside this directory. Close the Terminal window when it finishes running.
Double click the Update.command icon. This will open another Terminal window and run another script. This will read through the URLs in feeds.txt, find each audio file and download it to a podcasts folder in this directory. Each file is named with the episode title.
By default, the script downloads the 10 most recent episodes. To change this limit, set an environment variable PODCAST_DOWNLOAD_LIMIT to a number and run the script from the command line.
PODCAST_DOWNLOAD_LIMIT=20
python3 ./update.py feeds.txt podcastsDifferent players are going to need files in different places. On mine, there's a podcasts folder. I copy all my new files into it, and that's it. Yours might be different. When in doubt, read the instructions.
I bought a SanDisk Clip Player to let my kids have their own podcasts in the car. However, it needs actual MP3 files and has no connection to the internet, and most of the podcasting ecosystem has moved toward native apps like Apple Podcasts or Overcast.
Downloading podcasts, getting to the actual files and giving them sensible names turns out to be more difficult than it should be. This is an effort to fix that problem, without building a new, full-fledged desktop application.