CastKeeper Updates

2026.5.1 Release Available Now

CastKeeper 2026.5.1 is available today to all users as a free update.

After our biggest release ever, it was time to sit down and iron out some of the small wrinkles to give users a better experience.

Here's What's New in 2026.5.1

• You can now add episodes to your listening queue with dedicated buttons throughout the app. If your queue is empty, CastKeeper will intelligently play the next episode.
• Bulk selection is now available in Archive to manage multiple archived episodes at once.
• Users can now subscribe or follow podcasts from the Discovery page without having to open the podcast.
• CastKeeper has a new Sleep Timer interface that it much easier to use. Winding down with your favorite podcasts is easier than ever.

Self-Hosters Are Welcome

CastKeeper already supported those who self-host their own storage, but now we've taken it a step further.

Now if you self-host your own podcast feed - you can add it directly to your library. This will support feeds available over HTTP or only via LAN IP addresses. Note you will need to be connected to your local network to use LAN-based feeds, get notifications, or archive them.

We'd Love Your Feedback

CastKeeper intentionally ramps down the amount of times you're asked for a review, but it is important. Please remember to leave CastKeeper a review on the App Store to let others know about it, and help spread the word.

Also, a big thank you to user SN for their feedback and helping make the app better for everyone. It's truly our CastKeeper user community that continues to amaze us with their thoughtfulness and insight.

Your podcasts. Yours forever,

CastKeeper

CastKeeper 2026.5 Is Here. We May Have Gotten a Little Carried Away.

You know those updates that say, “Bug fixes and performance improvements”?

This is not one of those updates.

CastKeeper 2026.5 introduces a completely redesigned interface, an entirely rebuilt private sync engine, External Drive archiving, new Tracking Prevention tools, smarter Dynamic Ad Insertion detection, and improvements that make both CastKeeper and your podcast archives smaller.

We originally planned something a little less ambitious.

Then we started moving buttons around.

One thing led to another, and now nearly the entire app is new.

Meet the All-New CastKeeper

CastKeeper has been redesigned from top to bottom with a new graphics-forward interface built around your podcasts, their artwork, and the things you want to do most.

The new experience introduces refreshed navigation, richer layouts, clearer actions, redesigned podcast and episode views, and a more visual Home experience that makes it easier to decide what to play next.

We also redesigned the Full Player to put playback, episode information, transcripts, chapters, notes, accessibility options, and archive controls within easier reach.

The goal was not to make CastKeeper look different simply for the excitement of moving everything you already knew.

The goal was to make the app feel more natural, more useful, and more like the permanent home your podcast library deserves.

We Threw Out the Old Sync Engine

Sometimes the best way to improve something is to carefully refine it.

Other times, you stare at it for a while, take a deep breath, and rebuild the entire thing.

We chose option two.

CastKeeper 2026.5 includes an entirely new private sync engine designed to provide faster, smoother, and more reliable syncing between iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The new system improves how CastKeeper coordinates your library, subscriptions, playback progress, notes, archive information, preferences, and other supported data across your devices.

It is also designed to recover more gracefully when a device has been offline, has not opened CastKeeper recently, or returns with changes that need to be reconciled.

Ideally, you will rarely think about the new sync engine.

We have thought about it more than enough for everyone.

External Drive Support Is Finally Here

We previously said External Drive support was on our roadmap.

You asked when it was coming.

Then you asked again.

We got the hint.

CastKeeper can now archive public podcast episodes directly to a folder you select through Apple’s Files or Finder apps.

Your archive can live on local device storage, a folder on your Mac, a USB flash drive, portable SSD, external hard drive, SD card, or compatible network storage made available through Files or Finder.

Choose a folder in Settings, and CastKeeper will archive directly to that location whenever it is available.

CastKeeper stores your archive using standard files and folders rather than trapping it inside a proprietary database.

Archived audio, video, transcripts, chapters, artwork, and related assets remain accessible on the storage you selected, allowing you to browse, copy, move, and back up your files outside CastKeeper.

They are your files.

Holding them hostage would be awkward.

For removable storage that you intend to use with Apple devices and Windows PCs, we recommend exFAT for the broadest compatibility. For Apple-only storage, APFS is also supported when the drive is available through Files or Finder.

Your Podcast Player Shouldn’t Have a Side Hustle

You pressed Play because you wanted to hear a podcast.

You probably did not press Play because you wanted to contribute to an exciting new analytics dashboard.

CastKeeper introduces Tracking Prevention, which attempts to reduce known podcast analytics and tracking requests during playback whenever possible.

When CastKeeper performs a privacy check, you can review the result directly from the episode’s detail view. When a provider offers a privacy opt-out page, CastKeeper can also make that information available so you can review your options.

No tool can guarantee that every analytics system will be identified or prevented, but Tracking Prevention gives you more visibility and another layer of control over what happens when an episode begins playing.

Smarter Dynamic Ad Detection

Dynamically inserted advertising creates an unusual problem: two people can download what appears to be the same episode and receive slightly different audio.

CastKeeper 2026.5 expands support for identifying additional Dynamic Ad Insertion providers. This gives CastKeeper better information when processing an episode and helps Smart Summaries distinguish podcast content from advertising.

The result is a cleaner summary focused on the episode itself—and hopefully fewer important insights about mattresses, meal kits, and promotional codes.

Smaller App. Smaller Archives.

This version reduces the app’s overall download size and improves the way archived podcast assets use storage.

That means the app requires less space, archived episodes can consume less storage, and more of your device or drive remains available for the things that matter.

Such as more podcasts.

Additional Improvements & Fixes

Rebuilding nearly the entire interface gave us plenty of opportunities to clean up some things along the way.

• Redesigned navigation and layouts throughout iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• Redesigned the Home experience with richer artwork and clearer listening actions.
• Redesigned podcast and episode detail views.
• Redesigned the Full Player and its playback, archive, transcript, chapter, note, and accessibility controls.
• Improved responsiveness and performance throughout the new interface.
• Reduced the overall app download size.
• Reduced storage used by archived podcast assets.
• Fixed an issue where Home Screen widgets could occasionally fail to resume playback.
• Improved reliability when reconnecting removable archive storage.
• Fixed assorted visual inconsistencies, performance issues, and bugs discovered while rebuilding almost everything.

Thank You

CastKeeper 2026.5 grew into a much larger release because of the feedback, requests, bug reports, and ideas we received from the people using the app.

Thank you to everyone who tested a build, reported a problem, suggested an improvement, left a review, or told another podcast listener about CastKeeper.

We built CastKeeper because podcasts disappear, listening habits should remain private, and the media you care about should stay under your control.

Version 2026.5 is our biggest step toward that goal yet.

P.S. If you have ever searched for an old podcast episode only to discover that it vanished into the internet abyss, welcome. You are our kind of people.

2026.4.1 Release Available Now With Dropbox Support & More

The newest version of CastKeeper is now available as a free update to our existing users. In this release, CastKeeper has expanded its archiving options to include Dropbox! Further, CastKeeper now supports Shortcuts and App Clips.

Save & Archive Your Favorite Podcasts To Dropbox

CastKeeper has expanded its archive storage options to include Dropbox. When setting up Dropbox, you will be asked to authenticate your account and will then be able to save podcasts to Dropbox. At this time, CastKeeper can only support one Dropbox account. All podcasts archived to Dropbox are accessible in the app, as well as in your Dropbox account outside of the app.

Sharing is Now More Interactive with App Clips

CastKeeper has leveled up the sharing experience by introducing a dedicated App Clip when sharing a podcast to another Apple user. Simply share your favorite podcast or episode with anyone, and if they do not already have CastKeeper, they will be able to instantly launch our CastKeeper App Clip.

The App Clip allows your recipient to preview CastKeeper's intuitive interface, and more. When using the App Clip, users can:

• Play the shared episode using CastKeeper's player.
• See CastKeeper's Smart Summaries in action on the episode shared.
• View full show notes.
• See any chapters included in the podcast natively.

Saving the episode to an archive location, viewing transcripts, generating AI chapter summaries, or exploring other podcasts will require the full CastKeeper app. This is a great way to show your friends the CastKeeper experience firsthand, and let them know that podcasts may disappear, but yours won't.

Create Shortcuts For Quick Actions

CastKeeper now includes, out-of-the-box, support for Shortcuts actions to save a podcast to your archive, or add a note to your CastKeeper Notes. After installing the update, you will find these actions available in the Shortcuts app.

Other New Features

• Podcasts marked by creators as having explicit content will now show an "E" indicator in the podcast and/or episode. If you prefer not to listen to explicit episodes, you can hide them in Settings.
• If Dynamic Ad Insertions are detected in an episode, you will now see a "+Ads" with a clock to indicate that the duration published by the creator does not include the ad times.
• Timestamps in full show notes are now interactive and will skip to that time in the episode.

Improvements & Minor Fixes

Beyond our new features, CastKeeper has also included some improvements from the great feedback of our users, as well as some minor fixes.

• Episodes in CarPlay now match the ordering of the Home screen in the app.
• Long episode titles will now marquee scroll in the Mini Player unless Reduce Motion is enabled in Accessibility settings.
• The skip forward and backward buttons in the Mini Player have been increased in size for easier touch.
• Fixed a rare issue where transcripts for archived episodes were not uploaded to the same location as the archived audio file.
• Reduced overall app size.
• Added support for Apple's Age Verification & Significant Change APIs for regions that require age verification. Users outside of these areas are not affected.
• Improved loading and sync times throughout the app experience.

Thanks to everyone who has consistently given me great feedback and for supporting indepedent developers! I am already working on the next release and hope to have this out soon.

CastKeeper 2026.4.0 Now Available

Here is CastKeeper 2026.4.0 at a glance. Read below for more details on each of these features, as well as what's currently being investigated on the roadmap for future releases.

• Privacy-first Discovery engine
• New Accessibility Features
• New Themes & Custom App Icons
• Improvements
• Minor Bug Fixes

Revamped Search Now Includes Discovery

CastKeeper 2026.4.0 introduces the all-new Discovery Engine—helping you find great new podcasts while keeping your listening habits completely private. Unlike traditional podcast apps that build cloud-based profiles of your interests, CastKeeper generates recommendations using only data stored on your device. Our Search tab has been renamed the "Discovery" tab to better reflect the functionality while still allowing the same powerful search as previous versions.

Finally, podcast discovery without surveillance.

CastKeeper's discovery engine utilizes your data that lives on only your device, and your personal information such as name, email, identifiers, etc. are never sent to someone else's servers. Future updates will continue improving recommendations with additional signals while preserving CastKeeper's privacy-first design. Future updates will continue improving recommendations with additional signals while preserving CastKeeper's privacy-first design.

New Accessibility Features

• AirPods mode accessibility for haptics. When enabled, pressing the player buttons in the MiniPlayer and FullPlayer will mimic AirPods navigation with one haptic tap for play/pause, two haptic taps for forward 30s, and three haptic taps for backwards. For users with vision disabilities, this allows the haptic engine to give a sensory feedback to the button pressed, if haptics are enabled. CastKeeper will still respect your system and app level haptic settings.
• Accessible Player Under the Sensory, Motor & Focus area, users can now enable an accessible Full Player with larger buttons for both video and audio podcasts. Many of the previous secondary controls you can now find in the More button with larger tap targets.

Introducing CastKeeper Themes

CastKeeper now includes built-in themes that allow you to customize your CastKeeper app icon from our new icon to fit your personal style. Show your support for other areas that are important to you from our curated selection of themes for users to show off their cause. Simply head over to Settings, and find Themes under the top Personalization section to find our listing of all the themes available. You will see a preview of the new app icon, along with the changes to the UI colors such as headers, buttons, etc.

The initial set of themes includes general color updates, along with these special themes to show your support for what makes podcasting great.

• VB Strong. From Virginia Beach to listeners everywhere. A tribute to the place CastKeeper proudly calls home.
• Amplify. Celebrating Black creators, storytellers, and voices that continue to shape podcasting and culture.
• Pride. Celebrate diversity, inclusion, and the voices that make podcasting special. Love is love.
• Spectrum. Every mind tunes in differently. This theme celebrates the diverse spectrum of voices, stories, and frequencies that make podcasting richer for everyone.
• Survivor. For everyone fighting to record their next episode, this theme is for you. Hit play proudly - your story isn't over yet, and we're subscribing to it.
• Remember. This theme is to show support for anyone watching a loved one's story fade. Keep the voices. Keep the memories. Keep them close.

Other Improvements & Fixes

• You can now sort your New Episodes on the Home page by Release Date, Episode Length, and Podcast Name
• Fixed flickering when using Closed Captions with transcripts.
• Added haptics in full player to match MiniPlayer for forward / backward seek.
• Fixed issue where audio would experience issues when having Siri read aloud Smart Summaries when using wireless CarPlay.
• The search bar in Discovery now includes a dedicated button to start a search.
• Episodes with Dynamic Ad Insertions that could add additional time than what is published from their feed are clearly marked in the UX.
• Refreshed loading screen to show CastKeeper Icon.
• Various performance improvements.

 

The CastKeeper Roadmap

For our current users, I am committed to enhancing the CastKeeper app and experience for the long term. These are areas I'm actively exploring and are subject to change based on user feedback and platform capabilities.

• Apple Watch App. I am looking to bring an Apple Watch version of CastKeeper to our growing list of supported devices.
• Support for Archive to External Drives. CastKeeper support for archiving to external drives such as USB-C external drives, thumb drives, etc. is on the roadmap.
• App Clips For Sharing. I am working on how to use App Clips for sharing episodes among Apple users using App Clips.
• Smart Collections Improvements. I see a lot questions on social media about getting great new podcasts for road trips, plane rides, and other times when a great story would be great. This is an area I'd like to explore with Smart Collections.
• The X-Factors: iOS 27 and New Devices. I am actively looking into where CastKeeper can leverage the new iOS 27 features to futher enhance CastKeeper.

CastKeeper's 2026.3.5 Release Focuses on Accessibility - Podcasts are for Everyone

After the release 2026.3.0, I've finally been able to sit down and work on something I've always wanted to do: making podcasts accessible for everyone. Despite podcasts being an audio-based format, there are millions of people who should be able to enjoy them, but can't due to disabilities. In this release, my goal was to begin my journey to bring podcasts to these audiences, and today's release is only the beginning of my goal to bring accessibilty to CastKeeper.

However, when most people think of accessibilty, they focus only on vision and hearing. While these are important, I wanted to ensure that I look beyond these two areas, and really focus beyond just vision and hearing. One area I feel is often overlooked is sensory and focus areas, especially for the roughly 60+ million people globally diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and many more who may suffer from other disabilities like ADHD, PTSD, or other disabilities that often go overlooked because they're not as "visible".

To ensure CastKeeper is as inclusive as possible, you will now find a "Sensory & Focus" area in Settings, with specific accessibility settings. While I am no medical professional, I am open to hearing any feedback from anyone on how I can include any future accessibility options. To support this goal, I have set up a new email address specifically for these requests. I cannot guarantee every individual's requests will be met, I do take feedback very seriously, and will do my best to make CastKeeper as inclusive as possible.

If you have any suggestions for future accessibility features, please email us at podcastsforeveryone@castkeeper.app.

As for today's release, here is what CastKeeper now includes at no additional cost, as usual, and is ready for everyone to enjoy.

For users with hearing disabilities, CastKeeper now includes:

• Live Captions. Using Apple Intelligence on-device, CastKeeper will now generate live captions during playback, as you would find for television shows. Simply toggle this for always on in Settings, or hit our CC button in the player and watch the captions beghin. This works with both audio and video podcasts on all devices.
• Sound Identification. As part of captions, CastKeeper will put into captions any identified sounds like music, singing, etc. into live captions. Apple's current framework supports about 300 sounds, and all of them are included. Again, all on-device and private.
• Mono Mode. For users hard of hearing in one ear, toggle on mono mode in the Settings area and choose Left or Right. When using earbuds, CastKeeper will ensure all audio is pumped to that ear and downmix stereo into mono so users can hear everything.

For users with vision impairment, CastKeeper now offers the following accessibility features:

• Dyslexia Support with OpenDyslexic Font Enable this in Settings and CastKeeper will replace the system font with the OpenDyslexic font in areas requiring more reading including Smart Summaries, Transcripts, Full Show Notes, and CastKeeper Notes. The OpenDyslexic font is a standard font used to help those with dyslexia to be able to read easier.
• Monochrome Mode. For colorblind users, enabling Monochorme Mode will remove all color from the interface, and render everything in black, white and grayscale, including artwork.
• High Contrast Mode. This setting will make softer colors more bold, and bold text and icons to make them stand out more within the interface. Helps those with fatigue or eye strain.

For Sensory & Focus, we've added the following features:

• Custom Haptics. For users sensitive to haptics, users can now disable haptics altogher, or increase and decrease the haptic feedback throughout the system. This does not override the iOS system level, but rather acts as an additional layer since haptics can differ between apps.
• Remove Animations. For users sensitive to UI animations such as loading bars, spinning indicators, and loadng bars, enabling this accessibility Setting will remove animations where possible from the CastKeeper interface.

This is just the beginning of our journey to make podcasts truly for everyone. I already have some future accessibility plans in the works, but feedback from the community is not only welcomed, but needed. I hope for those who suffer from a disability, this makes your experience better with CastKeeper.

As always, thank you for your continued support and word of mouth about CastKeeper. Our journey has just begun, and this is a long-term commitment for me. I am looking forward to going back into the "lab" and figuring out how to make CastKeeper the best podcast app for everyone.

Our Biggest Release Since Launch! CastKeeper 3.0 Now Available

Over the past month, the feedback from CastKeeper has been overwhelmingly positive, and tons of requests for features! These features are now available on the App Store as a free update for all existing users.

With today's release of CastKeeper 3.0, CastKeeper now supports the biggest requested features. Support for iPad and Mac is here with full private sync across your devices. Start, subscribe, save, collect, or any of CastKeeper's features on one device, and pickup on the other. We've fined tuned our sync engine with CloudKit to provide our users a secure, private, no login requird sync experience.

When starting the journey of bringing CastKeeper to iPad and Mac, the main goal was to ensure that the iPad and Mac experience felt like a native experience. Rather than "porting" our user interface over from the iPhone, CastKeeper for iPad and Mac has been crafted to take advantage of the larger displays of the iPad and Mac, and full support for iPad and Mac experiences.

The CastKeeper iPad and Mac Experience

With the iPad and Mac expansion, users will now enjoy:

• A beautiful two or three column experience to allow users to view more information with less overlays and sheets.
• Full Apple Pencil support for our new CastKeeper Notes.
• A new mini-player experience and full player experience with full screen and picture-in-picture support for video podcasts.
• Keyboard shortcuts for most actions removing the need to mouse or touch for devices with a keyboard.

CastKeeper Notes - Track Your Notes and Thoughts Within the App & Across All Devices

One of the goals CastKeeper set out to achieve was to allow podcasts to become more than entertainment, but a serious way to conduct research, learning, and more. With this release, CastKeeper now includes our first iteration of CastKeeper Notes. Users can now attach notes at an episode level, during playback with time markers, and transcript notes with transcript references. To ensure accuracy, if CastKeeper detects the use of Dynamic Ad Insertions through our great algorithm, users will be prompted to archive the episode to maintain a single source of truth.

What CastKeeper Notes includes:

• Users can add notes at an episode level with no timestamp for overall personal show notes in the Episode Detail view.
• When using an iPad, you can use the Apple Pencil to draw diagrams, or take handwriten notes. These diagrams and hand-written notes can be viewed on other devices.
• Support for Siri and Shortcuts. Want to add a note on the go? Just ask Siri! Simply tell Siri to add a podcast note in CastKeeper, say your note, and Siri will automatically add the note in CastKeeper with the timestamp during playback when you added the note! Great for capturing your thoughts while driving and hands-free.

But The Updates Didn't Stop There!

Besides these two new features, which alone could posture a major release, CastKeeper looks to delight its users, so even more features are packed in!

• Archiving Private Feeds Has Arrived.> Users who subscribe to a private podcast feed via a tokenized URL can now save these episodes to personal and private storage. If CastKeeper detects the location is public or shared with others, you will not be able to save the episodes there. This is to ensure we protect our great podcasters and support their great content.
• UX Updates. >CastKeeper 3.0 includes updates across all devices including seeing the progress on transcriptions and Smart Chapter generation.
• Smart Chapters On Battery. If users allow generation on battery in Settings, you can now generate Smart Chapters while on battery.

Launch Sales Extended

To celebrate this major launch, we've extended our launch sale of $4.99 USD through June 30, 2026. New users who purchase the app now will get all of our previous features plus all of these new enhancements and features. If you love our experience, please leave us a review in the App Store!

We appreciate everyone's feedback, and love the word of mouth from our users. Be sure to tell your family and friends to grab our launch sale price while it's avialable.

Version 2026.2 Release Now Available

Since our launch of CastKeeper, we've received some great feedback about how CastKeeper is providing amazing tools and experiences for users. We really appreciate the feedback.

With the launch of CastKeeper's latest version, we have some major updates to improve the experience. CastKeeper continues to improve the experience for users, and we're expanding our availability. CastKeeper is now available across the world, including the European Union.

As part of our European roadtrip, CastKeeper now supports a native CarPlay experience.

CastKeeper for CarPlay - Listen and Archive On The Go

CastKeeper's CarPlay features include the following:

• You can listen to any episode, including your archived episodes on the go.
• Archiving a podcast is just a tap away. Touch the cloud icon in the Now Playing screen to archive the episode to your default location.
• Episode AI summaries on the go are available. Touch the speech bubble on the Now Playing screen in CarPlay, and your native Siri voice will read back the AI episode summary to you.

Limited Time Launch Sale Reminder! Please remember that our limited time launch sale is only for a limited amount of time. For less than a cup of coffee, you can get CastKeeper, and continue to get new features and improvements.

CastKeeper is Live in the App Store!

CastKeeper has officially launched in the App Store! To celebrate the launch of CastKeeper, there is a LIMITED TIME launch sale.

Right now, you can get CastKeeper for it's lowest price ever at only $4.99 USD! This is a one-time purchase, and you get all of great features CastKeeper offers.

For this initial launch, you'll find CastKeeper has been performance tuned and ready to go. You may find some neat little UX improvements since our last beta version that were saved for this moment.

Thank You...

As an indie developer, I want to first express my everlasting love and thanks to my two biggest supporters - my amazing wife and daughter. Both of them provided me some great feedback, patience during late night coding sprints, and overall have been my biggest cheerleaders to pursue this dream of building CastKeeper. My amazing wife even started getting more into podcasts just to show her support, and thank you honey! For my daughter, you may find her influence in our achievements section (she'll never tell the secret!).

Further, our excellent beta testers deserve a huge thank you for making this happen. They're support, feedback, ideas, and suggestions are everywhere in the app you will use today, and will see in the future. So as you enjoy CastKeeper, remember it took a lot of dedicated supporters to get us here, and continue to help with our journey.

CastKeeper is just getting started...

This initial launch is just the beginning of CastKeeper. In the future, CastKeeper will cotinue to grow its functionality and add more quality of listener features.

As usual, you'll find any future updates on this page, so be sure to subscribe to this page via RSS to get the latest updates.

CastKeeper Release Candidate Now Available!

CastKeeper is now in the release candidate phase. After months of development, weeks of testing, and a lot of help from family and friends of CastKeeper, the app is now ready to enter the final stages for App Store approval.

This past week the focus has been mainly on three things: Speed, Stability, and Engagement. Before release to the App Store soon, ensuring a fast, stable, and engaging experience is the top priority. In this Release Candidate, you'll find some things no longer in the same place you used to find them, a more stable experience, and an all-new way to track your podcast listening on CastKeeper.

Let's dive right into the changes, improvements, and fixes in this release:

• New Streamlined Full Player: The full player in CastKeeper has been streamlined to get you the information you need, or the actions you want to perform, with less buttons. In the Full Player, you can now swipe where the podcast image used to navigate between the episode's artwork, chapters, AI summary, hosts, and transcript. Alternatively, you can tap on the card image below as well to quickly jump between each.
• New Achievements: Check out our brand new Achievements in the Settings screen near your listening stats. Earn achievements by listening to podcasts, and see if you can earn all of our platinum level achievements. Also, you'll find some rare achievements that will unlock when completing specific secret missions. See if you can figure them out!
• Improved Episode Detail View. Increased performance with our Episode Detail screen, and moved the share button to the top right menu. Our previous layout was a little tight for those with smaller devices.
• Improved Overall Speed and UX Responsiveness. CastKeeper will feel more fluid from launch and throughout the interface.
• Improved OPML Imports. CastKeeper's OPML import has been improved significantly for speed and accuracy.
• Improved AI Chapter Generation for more accurate chapters.
• Fixed issue with requesting new Hosts or updating Host information.

What's Next?

The deadline to submit any more feedback will be April 13, 2026. This weekend, we will begin our App Store launch preparations, and address any critical feedback before our final submission to the App Store. If you haven't tried out all of CastKeeper's features yet, or were holding off telling a friend about the app, now's the time to do it.

Once CastKeeper has been submitted for App Store approval, this page will be updated with our launch details.

CastKeeper Public Beta 5 Release

Happy Monday! As CastKeeper continues to get closer to a public release, the focus has shifted now to quality of listener improvements and bugs. Since the last release, a lot of great feedback has been received, and keep them coming!

While the next CastKeeper beta release was scheduled for next week, a new release is being put out earlier to ensure the most quality experience for our testers, and upcoming users.

Improvements in Public Beta 5:

• Enhanced Search. Search results will now include two paths, Podcasts and Episodes. Entering a search term will return the podcasts where that term is found, as well as a new section called "Episodes" where users can find the specific episodes where the search term is found. Looking for just that one episode where something was mentioned, or an interview took place, use the Episodes filter. Episodes found can be quickly added to the "Listen Later" collection.
• Archive View Enhancements. The Archive page has been reworked to make filtering, ordering, and searching archived podcast episodes easier. Users can now filter by storage location, as well as change their sorting mechanism. A dedicated search bar has been added to locate a specific archived episode.
• Silence Trimming Improved. Continued to improve our silence trimming algorithm for better results.
• New Controls for Full Screen Video. You can now favorite, bookmark, or change output audio target for video podcasts when in full screen mode.
• UX Polishes. In the spirit of dyeing Easter eggs, CastKeeper has added some more polish with consistent color schemes and navigation throughout the interface, along with some UX changes to make finding important information easier.
• Speaking of Easter Eggs, there may be a little one hidden in the UX somewhere. Happy hunting!

Bugs fixed in this release:

• Fixed issue where Full Player did not show friendly names of archive locations when using archive button.
• Fixed issue where hitting skip chapter forward on the last chapter would restart last chapter instead of going to the end of the episode.
• Fixed issue where AI-generated chapters without a saved transcript would not show in the Full Player chapters picker.
• Fixed issue with RSS where episodes were not pulling in for podcasts.

That's all for today's release.

CastKeeper Public Beta 4 Release

This past week I've finally nailed the one last feature I was saving to make sure it was done right. With Public Beta 4, CastKeeper now supports Video Podcasts. While the podcast "purist" in me still prefers the audio experience, video podcasts are on the rise. To ensure our video podcasters get the same love as our audio-only feeds, I wanted to personally make sure this worked.

Here's the full breakdown of how video podcasts are now integrated into CastKeeper:

• The iTunes API doesn't allow multiple file types in a single podcast feed. So if you see a podcast titled "Video", that's your best bet.
• Despite being a video podcast, I've retained the ability to go "audio only" for those times watching isn't easy. Simply tap the "camera off" icon in the Full Player to go "audio only". And when you're ready to resume watching, touch the same icon to resume video seamlessly.
• Video podcasts will natively support picture-in-picture, full-screen mode, and when closing the full player you will see a tiny live video in the Mini Player. Tapping the mini player will resume the Full Player with the video.
• Video podcasts support a seamless transition to "audio only" when the phone is locked or display goes to sleep to continue playing the audio in the background. This is very similar to how YouTube TV works and it's a wonderful feature.
• Resuming an In Progress (paused) episode in our now renamed, "Continue Playing" section on the Home tab will automatically open the full player and resume the podcast in the last mode you left it. So if you paused it in video mode, it will bring up the full player and video. If you paused it in audio mode, it will continue in audio mode. Simply head over to the player to resume the video.
• Bookmarking video podcasts for "Save For Later" will now be separated into an automatic "Watch Later" collection. "Listen Later" remains for audio-only podcasts.

This release also includes some key changes and improvements since the previous release, including:

• Sleep Timer UX Improved. The previous build's changes to the sleep timer we're not a responsive as oriignally envisioned. In this release, the UX for sleep timer has been improved from to a one-step screen. The radial dial has returned is much more responsive on drag, as well as quick buttons to add or remove time.
• AI Chapter Improvements. Generation of AI Chapters no longer requires you to permanently store the transcript. The system will generate a temporary transcript to create the AI Chapters, but immediately remove it from memory. Users can generate a transcript for permanent transcription separately. The UX has been reworked to pull the Generate Transcript button to the top of the Episode View.
• AI Chapter Algorithm Improved. This release includes updates to the algorithms to AI Chatper generation for more accurate chapter markers and name, and improved ad detection from transcripts when generating AI Chapters.
• Browse and Manage Archives Within the App. This feature was previously available, however, was in the Storage Usage in the Settings. You can now find this right below Storage Usage on the Settings page. In this view, you can see all of your archived episodes, including transcripts and chapters, and delete them from within the app. A new filter has also been added to filter not only by file type, but also by Storage Location for larger libraries.
• Performance and UX Updates. This release includes performance updates and optimizations, and small UX adjustments.

Bugs fixed in this release:

• OPML imports will now show podcast artwork after imports, and improved matching. A big thank you to beta tester T.E. for reporting this issue.
• Fixed rare crashes occurring with Silence Trimming, speficially when streaming an episode.
• Fixed some minor bugs and issues.

Thanks to everyone who has supported CastKeeper on this incredible journey, and I'm looking forward to bringing it to the world soon. Next week's release will be the last release, and is planned as our Release Candidate version. At this time, no more new features are planned, only bug fixes or quality of listener improvements. If you have any feature requests, I still want to hear them, as after launch the plan is to continue to improve CastKeeper.

Launch plans and information will be included in next week's release notes. In the meantime, please feel free to refer other podcast users to the beta through the website. We still have a few open spots left, but spots are filling up fast!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release 2 Out Now

Thanks to everyone who has given me such awesome feedback, that I've released my next build earlier than expected.

Release 2 of Public Beta 3 is available now, and I will be expiring old builds from testing due to many changes and ensuring testers are on the latest version.

The full changelog is below:

What's New in this Release:

• NEW COLLECTION TEMPLATES: We've revamped collections to add some fun quick-to-add collections that you can use. We've also refined the manual collection creation to allow users to futher refine Smart Collections or Manual Collections. Check it out!
• I've made some significant improvements to our Trim Silences feature to reduce jitter and clipping.
• NEW SLEEP TIMER UX: Revamped the sleep timer process to make it easy to start a timer, and now you will see a live view of the night sky overhead when setting a sleep timer. If one isn't available, a beautiful night view from Apple Maps will appear.
• Added a close buton to the Mini Player that is available when audio is not playing or loading. Thanks to tester Ruben for this suggestion.
• Cleaned up some very minor UX issues and performance tuned for older devices.

Continue with the great feedback! CastKeeper is a better app because of our testing community. I'll be taking a few days to work on other things and await more feedback, but this one I felt needed to get out ASAP. Our next release will include a really good addition that I think you all will definitely like. Just ironing out some of the final code. Stay tuned!

CastKeeper Public Beta 3 Release Notes

I've spent the weekend getting great feedback from our testing community, as well as making some more final preparations before our launch. I want to give a big thank you personally to everyone who has contributed their feedback, and I appreciate everyone so far enjoying CastKeeper.

So let's get down to the good stuff. Public Beta 3 is out now, and in this release, I've added some "Quality of Listener" improvements, along with some minor fixes.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• Multiple S3 Buckets From Same Provider Type Support. Previously, only one bucket for S3 account providers was allowed. Now users can add as many S3 buckets they would like from the same provider, including Custom S3 servers. So whether you happen to have multiple Wasabi buckets and want to separate your archive, or run a homelab with a bunch of S3 buckets, you can now add these to CastKeeper. This does not work for iCloud Drive.
• Normlize Audio for Playback. Go to Settings and enable this feature to boost lower sounds and reduce louder sounds, like ads, to maintain a consistent audio volume at the level you set. A big thank you to my amazing wife for this suggestion!
• Trim Silences has arrived. Enable this in settings to have CastKeeper automatically trim out long pauses and silences during episode playback to save you more time for more podcasts. Thank you to tester "startfragment".
• Listening Stats with Charts. Check out our new listening stats in Settings where you can see just how much time you've saved using our Trim Sliences feature, as well as some other information. All information is stored privately and synced through iCloud and cross-device. Each section includes a little chart for a quick glance.

Improvements in this Release:

• Cleaned up the Settings Page and added information buttons you can tap to see what each toggle does in a popover.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• I received some feedback from an English teacher who kindly reminded me that new sentences should not start with a number. So I wrote a small essay of code to fix that in our greetings as my way of saying thank you, and I'm sorry.

We've really started making some great progress towards launch, and I appreciate everyone's feedback. Remember, if you have any feedback, and prefer to send it to me directly, please email me at feedback@castkeeper.app. I will do my best to personally respond to each of you as soon as possible.

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 Release Out Now

CastKeeper Public Beta 2 is out now for continued testing. In this release, I've squashed some bugs, and introduced more new features and improvements to make the CastKeeper experience better in preparation for our launch.

The full changelog is below:

New Features for Beta Testers:

• With the release of iOS 26.4, transcriptions now automatically use Apple Intelligence's latest frameworks for faster transcripts, with less battery usage. Users with devices that support Apple Intelligence will automatically get access to this feature. For older devices, WhisperKit is still available, but it is suggested to run transcripts on battery due to heavier work to preserve battery life.
• Translations now leverage new frameworks to transcribe your transcripts using Apple Intelligence. Watch as your transcripts go from one language to another as they are processed. Older devices will need to continue to download the appropriate language packs and use the older Translation APIs.
• S3 Provider setup has been simplified to allow a faster setup, including pricing links to our preconfigured providers, helping you choose the plan right for you.
• You can now create a new S3 bucket or select an existing bucket on your service after configuration.
• Users who set up a custom S3 server can now set a "friendly" name for the server like "My Homelab S3" and the UI will show that throughout so you know what specific S3 bucket your episodes are in.

Bugs Squashed in this Release:

• Episodes played from Archive with a sleep timer will correctly mark episodes as played when they finish.
• Improved Smart Collections for better results.
• Improved AI Chapter generation engine to better detect advertisements and increase accuracy.
• Transcript View should no longer duplicate "Chapters" and "AI Chapters" with AI-generated chapters.
• Due to Apple's strict guardrails with Apple Intelligence, tweaked the AI Episode Summary generation with fallback handling if running into safeguards. Apple's strict control of Apple Intelligence caused some extra work, but it's private, just how I like it.

Coming Soon:

I'm currently working on revamping the Hosts feature for a better experience for users, as well as our beloved podcasters. Most of this work will occur outside of the app, but stay tuned here for an update when it's ready.

CastKeeper Now in Public TestFlight!

As of today, CastKeeper is now in public TestFlight. We are excited to show CastKeeper to a larger audience prior to our public launch next month. If you are interested in joining the public beta, you can join directly via TestFlight on our home page while we still have testing spots open.

For those joining us, here is an overview of what CastKeeper is offering beyond your normal podcast app:

• No subscriptions, no ads, no tracking. Your podcasts are your business.
• Archive your favorite podcasts! Our flagship feature, CastKeeper allows you to archive your favorite episodes to iCloud Drive out of the box as well as S3 compatible storage.
• Full support out of the box for the most popular S3 providers, including Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, AWS, and Digital Ocean. You can also set up your own custom S3 server if you have another provider or are a self-hoster.
• Learn more about your favorite podcast hosts with our Hosts feature!
• Full OPML import of your existing library for quick startup.
• Cross-device sync using Apple CloudKit. No logins, no passwords. Your library and playback will sync automatically between devices using Apple's secure CloudKit.

Apple Intelligence takes your podcasts to the next level. CastKeeper includes Apple Intelligence for supported devices to allow features to enhance your podcast experience. No cloud, no additional costs, full privacy. If your device supports Apple Intelligence, you automatically get the following features:

• Episode AI Summaries with sponsor detection. Know before you listen what the episode is about without digging through show notes. Identify sponsors of your favorite podcasts and associated promo codes to support your favorite podcast.
• Dynamic Ad Insertion notification in AI Summaries with opt-out links. Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) providers are identified with links to opt-out where available. While CastKeeper never tracks your listening habits, DAI providers do.
• Full Transcription of episodes. Transcribe your episodes right within CastKeeper and export them to your favorite formats for later. For students, MLA citations are included automatically at the bottom of each transcription.
• Translation of transcripts. Translate your transcripts into over 15 languages. You can share you transcripts in another language as well. Great for students for language immersion, or sharing your favorite podcast episode with a friend whose native language is different than yours.
• Smart Collections. Follow or Subscribe to as many podcasts as your want, and create Smart Collections to track anything. Want to know everything about the new MacBook Neo? Simply createa a smart collection and let CastKeeper do the work!

A big shoutout to the close friends who did a lot of internal testing to get CastKeeper into a public beta ready state! I'm looking forward to everyone enjoying using CastKeeper as much as I enjoyed developing it.

- BW