When you want to subscribe to a podcast, it’s usually as easy as clicking a link—often a link labeled Add to Apple Podcasts or to another popular podcast app, like Castro, Overcast, and Pocket Casts.
However, I increasingly find that a benefit of membership to editorial sites, many kinds of creators’ patronage campaigns, and subscription podcast networks includes a custom podcast feed tailored to you or only available to members. In order to prevent this feed from becoming widely distributed, it’s sometimes made not quite as easy to add through a single click.
Here’s how to add a podcast feed to the four most-popular podcast apps.
Get the podcast URL
A podcast URL uses the RSS format for creating a machine-readable list of discrete entries, as in a blog. For podcasts, the RSS feed includes a special enclosure tag that podcast apps can interpret to download an audio file.
