Overcast

Category

Description of App

A powerful, simple, award-winning podcast player. Featured by the App Store as Editor's Choice and critically acclaimed by The Verge, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, AppAdvice, and more.

No big company or VC funding here — Overcast is the only major podcast app written by a single person.

The Verge: “The best podcast app for the iPhone”

9to5Mac: "Overcast is the best podcast app that I’ve ever used”

AppAdvice: "Our favorite podcast client"

Six Colors: "My podcast player of choice"

The Sweet Setup: “Overcast is our favorite”

Cult of Mac: “It’s the best podcast app out there”

TIME: “Overcast lives up to its lofty claims”

iMore: "My personal favorite"

TechCrunch: “There is no reason why you should still be using the Podcasts app over Overcast”

Overcast is a modern, fully featured audio podcast app with many useful features in a simple, intuitive interface:

- Smart Speed saves time without distorting the audio or sounding unnatural.

- Voice Boost makes every podcast the same volume with a broadcast-quality remastering engine.

- Download podcasts for playing anytime, even offline.

- Search and browse for new podcasts, plus get personalized recommendations.

- Create custom Playlists with smart filters and per-podcast priorities, and rearrange the list whenever you want.

- Receive optional notifications when new episodes arrive.

- Subscribe to a podcast, or just add an episode: try new shows without committing.

- Sleep timer automatically stops playback after any time interval you set.

- Apple Watch app with standalone playback and cellular streaming.

- CarPlay support.

And Overcast has world-class privacy, with no third-party analytics, ad services, or tracking code.

Overcast is funded by ads that promote other podcasts. If you choose to purchase Overcast Premium to hide these ads, payment will be charged to your iTunes account, and your account will be charged for renewal 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the iTunes Store after purchase. Current price for Overcast Premium is $9.99 USD per year, and may vary from country to country.

Privacy policy: https://overcast.fm/privacy

Terms of use: https://overcast.fm/terms

Proudly made in New York.

Version

2023.9

Free or Paid

Free With In-App Purchase

Apple Watch Support

Yes

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

17.2

Accessibility Comments

Appears to be fully accessible with no issues when used with VoiceOver.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Developer's Twitter Username

@OvercastFM

Recommendations

6 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by AnonyMouse 6 months 4 weeks ago

Options

Comments

By Diego Garibay on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - 18:58

Is this the same person who created Downcast, or do the names just match for no reason?

By jrjolley (not verified) on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - 18:58

In reply to by Diego Garibay

I'm curious as to how it compares to downcast as I have invested a lot of time with that app and use it on both mac and iOS. Is it the same concept, podcast watching with iCloud integration?

By Blind I Am on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - 18:58

Just in case somebody else is like me and doesn’t immediately figure out why dragging your finger across a podcast or episode doesn’t action the delete option, you have to drag your finger from right to left in this app.

By Soupy on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 - 18:58

I’ve read that when you use the Smart Speed feature, the time that this has saved is supposed to be displayed somewhere. Has anybody found this yet? Or is it not accessible with VoiceOver?

By AnonyMouse on Friday, September 5, 2014 - 18:58

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Accounts are now optional. Nice!

What's New in Version 1.0.2

- Accounts are now optional
- Many minor improvements, including scrub-to-end protection, Voice Boost's tonal balance, larger "i"-button touch areas, titles in share sheets, and more
- Many bugfixes: wrong free-space errors, too much space used, sudden logouts, gray controls, missing Polish characters, common crashes, and more

By Diego Garibay on Friday, September 5, 2014 - 18:58

Does anyone know how to make it so that this only streams the Podcasts. How do you make its would've never downloads.

By AnonyMouse on Friday, September 5, 2014 - 18:58

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hello Diego,

At this time. You will not be able to just stream the audio. One must download the Podcast in order to listen to them. My understanding is that the developer is considering in making as a feature at some point. So we will wait and see if Marco decides to make streaming a reality.

HTH

By Rocker on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Awesome app but you better watch your data if your on cellular as it downloads episodes automatically. You can disable cellular downloads in settings or pause a download but I have not found a way to delete a partial download or any download as of yet.
The app can be set to keep 1 or more epasodes.
Yes, the speed boost, time saved counter and voice boost funtions are all accessible with V/O. I only wish the app would allow one to determine if they want to download the new epasode rather then it starting automatically. Another minor annoyance is that you cannot play an episode until the download completes.
On the bright side is that you get a lot of info on each episode which V/O reads just fine. Great app, I have no regrets dishing out the $$$ and I look forward to more improvements.

I tend to use downcast on the Mac and this overcast player on the iPhone. I am curious how I can mark an episode as listened too on overcast. I've tried tap and hold methods as in Downcast but that still plays the episode. The only way I have found to do this is to open the episode and scrub right to the end of it.

By David Goodwin on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

There isn’t currently an option to mark an episode as played, but retain the downloaded file.

However, to delete an unplayed or partially played episode - place focus on the episode title in the list view. Now, double-tap and hold. Whilst still keeping your finger pressed to the screen, slide it left. This will reveal the delete button. Typically, VoiceOver focus immediately jumps to this button, but sometimes it is necessary to either locate it by touch or swipe to it.

Hope this helps.

By John Courtney on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

When you are in a list of pod casts:
One. Swipe to the left when you hear a pod casts title and description.
Two. Next, you will hear an item that only speaks the time remaining and the date the podcast was added.
Three. Next, swipe down and you will hear the option to delete the podcast. Double tap now to delete the podcast.

By jrjolley (not verified) on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

In reply to by David Goodwin

I assume if I do delete episodes they are effectively forgotten about after the next refresh. The solution worked fine though, thanks a lot for it.

By Lisa on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello everyone,
After I finish listening to a podcast will it be automaticly deleted? If not, is there a setting I can change, so that will happen? I would like podcasts to be deleted when I finish listening to them to save space on my phone. Thank you.

By Soupy on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Podcasts are automatically deleted once you have listened to them. In fact, there’s currently no option right now in the app for this not to happen - supposedly the developer is looking at adding the ability to keep podcasts that you listened to.

That and the ability to stream podcasts will be nice additions.

By Lisa on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello everyone,
I searched for the podcast done by accessible world, but I was not able to find with Overcast. I even put in accessible world tech talk. still no results. Does anyone know if this podcast can be found with Overcast? Thank you.

By Lisa on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello,
Yes, that is the website. Thanks.

By Lisa on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello everyone,
I have notifications turned on for Overcast, but I am not receiving them. I new that one of the podcasts that I had subscribed to had a new podcast available, so I opened Overcast and the podcast began to download. Maybe this is how Overcast works, I'm not really sure though. Shouldn't I get a notification letting me know that a new podcast is available? Or am I misunderstanding how the notifications in Overcast work? Thank you.

By Soupy on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Lisa,

Assuming that you have it correctly enabled in Settings > Notifications, you should be getting notifications of new episodes.

Notifications work fine for me (and actually come through what seems like as soon as an episode is posted).

The only thing to note is that the app doesn’t support badges, so you won’t see an indication of the app icon of how many new episodes you have.

Hello Soupy,
I took another look at the settings for Overcast again. Background refresh was turned off, so I turned that on. Everything else is on. Maybe that was the problem. Not sure though. Thanks for your help.

By Daniel on Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hi all, can anyone confirm the following.

If you play a podcast from the web player on the overcast site and then stop what your listening too, quit your browser and start the same podcast on your iphone, you do carry on where you've left off from the web player.
However, if you do this the other way round, start a podcast on your iphone, stop it, go to the overcast website and log in, pick the podcast you've started on the phone with and at least for me, always, the podcast will start from the beginning again even though I've obviously started it beforehand on the iphone.

Are any of you able to reproduce this? I do have an Overcast account login which I have log in it seems automatically on the phone and I log in manually from the website. I thought by having one's own login your podcasts were suppost to sync automatically either from phone or the web player thus the purpose of having a login for this to happen.

Any tips, if I'm doing something wrong then please post back here because it's not syncing correctly for me.

Thank you

Daniel

By Lisa on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello everyone,
Can the Blind Geek Zone podcast be downloaded with OverCast? I have searched for it, but I can't find it. I thought for sure it would be available with OverCast. Thank you.

By Daniel on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello Leisa,

copy The following text into overcast URL section when going to add a podcast. Hit the done button and hopefully it should subscribe to the feed. It did for me.

http://blind-geek-zone.net/feed/podcast

hope this helps.

Daniel

By Lisa on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hello Daniel,
I copied the link, and it seamed to work. I am now subscribed to the Blind Geek Zone podcast. Something strange though, OverCast didn't download any episodes of the Blind Geek Zone podcast. When I have subscribed to other podcasts episodes begin to download. Not sure what to think of this. Thanks for your help with this.

By Daniel on Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - 18:58

Hi Again Leisa. I think that the way Notifications work is that you have to leave Overcast open in the app switcher all the time. I remember a few times now that I received Notifications when leaving the app running but I didn't when the app was closed from the app switcher. So basically, turn on background app refresh and make sure Overcast is set to on then open up Overcast and leave it running all the time and hopefully, you should begin to get your podcast updates pushed to you.

Leaving the app closed and opening it once in a while will just as you say show how many podcasts are downloading but leaving it running in the background all the time should bring you the results you are seeking.

I hope this helps you and anyone else on how this feature is suppose to work.

By rod on Monday, January 5, 2015 - 18:58

Downcast is a far better APP! Is much easier to use so unless you want to download over your ccellular account or want to store vast quantities of data in the cloud then why use Overcast which charges for features FREE with Downcast. I emailed the developer with a query but his bad manners did not permit him to reply. Why are we being asked tovote for this inferior product? RRegards Rod

By Soupy on Monday, January 5, 2015 - 18:58

In reply to by rod

Like so many things, I guess that it’s all down to personal opinion.

I used Downcast heavily for a couple of years, but now use Overcast. Both are extremely accessible and easy to use. Downcast currently has more features and greater flexibility. However, if you aren’t a power user, Overcast may provide a more satisfying user experience.

As for having to pay for features in OverCast which are free in Downcast - Overcast is free to download and you pay if you want the additional features. Downcast is a paid app in the first place, so you aren’t getting anything for free (and that’s not to say that it’s not worth every cent, as it’s a great app).

As for the developer not responding to you, he’s one of the most highly-respected developers in the App Store, so I would be very certain that any lack of response was not a result of bad manners.

By Daniel on Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 18:58

Dear all, I am curious. For those who use Overcast as your pod catcher of choice, would you say that it synchs well between IOS devices? I don't own an Ipad but since now the app is now universal I.E. can run on more than just the iPhone, I was just wondering how good is its synching capabilities between iPhone and iPad with respects to where you stop a podcast and pick up from where you left off on another device. I

I hope that makes sense.

By Usman on Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 18:58

I think I will stick to downcast as it appears that I'm not missing much. Unless this app introduces a new and revolutionary feature lacking in downcast, I will get it.

By Mike Freeman on Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 18:58

In reply to by Usman

I'm still using Downcast and plan to stick with it. It has all the features one could want and since it still works with iOS 7.1.2, that's a plus since I'm still using that OS.

The one advantage to Overcast is that I guess it takes advantage of certain attributes of .MP3 files to smoothly compress the audio. but since it's only available for those unfortunate enough to have upgraded to iOS 8, I'm not using it. (grin)

By Daniel on Thursday, February 5, 2015 - 18:58

Hi all, for those who own both an iPad and iPhone and if possible switched to Overcast, can anyone say that podcasts correctly synch successfully between devices? This is the only thing that's holding me back from switching totally from another podcast client.

Many Thanks

By Daniel on Friday, June 5, 2015 - 18:58

Hi all, is there anyone here who knows how to sort the order of podcast episodes with VoiceOver? Basically, if the order was 3, 2, 1. Then is there any way, of rearranging this list, so that it would end up being: 1, 2, 3. so that the podcast episodes would be in the correct order.I hope this makes sense.

By Daniel on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - 18:58

Hi all, prier to my last post, I'd like to share a tip with you that @overcast.fm told me and by doing this, I was able to resolve my previous post issue.

Basically, when you enter the podcast you want to listen to and see the episodes listed. The trick here, is to find the unread button double tap this, and that's it.

Your podcast episodes should be reordered. Apparently the unread button functions as the reordering of your podcast episodes. E.G. Going from oldest to newest. or: newest to oldest. Mine was stuck on the latter (newest to oldest.) I wanted the former, (oldest to newest.) In order that the play next feature would work correctly in the podcast feed.

Marco is aware of this and said that he would try to make the labelling more clear for Voiceover users. Assuming, in a later version of the app.

I just wanted to share this with everyone because the tip might not apparently be obvious which proved to be correct in my case. further more, for new comers or regular users of the app to be aware of this just in case you accidentally change the sorting order..

Before this tip was known to me, I was literally, creating playlists for the podcasts that I'm subscribed to that had more than three episodes. Just to force them into the correct order of the date they were released.

Now, armed with this tip, I don't have anymore annoyances with this app the one I'm describing being the only one and have now deleted all my created playlists and am having a wonderful podcast listening experience!

Hope this helps anyone. :)

By AnonyMouse on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

This is now absolutely FREE across the board. A very big release of having the ability to stream podcast and other wonderful new features. A small note is that I do believe you must have iOS 9 to use this version of OverCast. Definetly my go to podcast app of choice.
What's New in Version 2.0

- Streaming
- Chapters
- Storage management
- Icon badge option
- Play-by-priority option
- Smart Speed now dynamically adjusts to quiet voices
- Lots of bugs fixed, including playlist reordering and storage growth
- Tons of little improvements and optimizations

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

It syas offers in app purchases in the price button so be awre of that.

By AnonyMouse on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hello KE7ZUM

Yes, with in the AppStore it may still mention in-app purchases but if you look closer with in the Settings area. You will see that you can now support Marco by doing a volunteer monthly subscription. All items that were locked in v1.x for in-app purchases are now unlocked in v2.0. It is now completely free across the board. So you can use those once locked features in v1.x now in this new version.

I believe that the mention of the in-app purchase on the iTunes AppStore is an error and have not been removed. Plus, when searching for the Overcast in the AppStore. One will noticed that past the FREE button does not have the usual In-App purchase note. Many sources and plus the developer comment with in the Settings is made quite clear that it is now free and there is no In-App purchase any more.

So please do let me know if this is indeed an error on my part.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

Actually thats how I noticed it. It says get over cast free, contains in app purchases button. I guess we'll see when they fix that, if they do. If it is a mistke on apple or overcast part then cool cool, if not at least the downloader beware.

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

to further comment the monthly subscription doe scount as an in app purchase so yeah that's still right.

Take care.

By Chris Smart on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

Wow! Comparing audio sped up in Downcast to that in Overcast is night and day! I've never heard speech compression that is this natural! Overcast will definitely save me time and provide stress-free listening, given the number of podcasts I consume throughout the week.

By Chris Smart on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

Does anyone know how to download all episodes of a particular podcast?

By KE7ZUM on Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 18:58

I've been wondering that myself. I have to swipe up to add then again to download on each episode and it gets tiring. lol!

By Daniel on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

Similar sort of question that Chris says but mine happens to be: Once you have downloaded all episodes of a podcast on your 1st device, does anyone know of a way that they can be auto downloaded to a 2nd device? Without having to either 1, logout and back in ¬or 2, manually download them again on the next device your moving to.

Hope this makes sense.

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

I contacted the dev about this a few months ago and got no response. In fact, I have gotten no response on any of my questions. I have since uninstalled overcast as it's not worth the effort to use it. Now if downcast had smart speed, I'd ,, take it

By Isak Sand on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

Hello!
I do not listen very much to podcasts, but I decided to give Overcast a try. Shouldn't it give push notifications when a new episode comes out. I tried with a radio news feed that updates hourly, but I haven't seen any notifications although "Notifications for new episodes" is switched on. Have I just missed something, or is this just broken?

By Greg Wocher on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

Hello,
You must be missing something. I get notifications all the time when new episodes come out. I am using a iPhone6+ running iOS9.2. Make sure that you allowed notifications for this app in your settings.

Regards,
Greg Wocher

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

Actually it's broken for me to. And it was on on settings and overcast. I've since uninstalled the app, the interface was just horable and it was more trouble then it was worth to dl multiple eps of a podcast. I did contact the devs about all of this by the way.

By Greg Wocher on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

What is wrong with the interface in overcast? I find it to be rather easy to use myself. I tried going back to downcast recently but I could not get that app to work well at all.

Regards,
Greg Wocher

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - 18:58

Focus jumps everyware. . The interface for downcast is much easier and batch doing stuff is way easier to. Click edit from with in the podcast, click the lower right button that says select then click action and what ever you want it to do. With over cast I have to swipe through the jumping interface , then swipe up on every episode twice, once to mark it, once to download or recommend. I'd rather not do that much work.

By the way, this comes from a seasoned ios user. I've run everything from prerelase to release software so I know what I'm looking for in terms of stuff like this.

By The podcast junky on Sunday, June 5, 2016 - 18:58

Is the web app accessible on the iPad?

By KE7ZUM on Sunday, June 5, 2016 - 18:58

Overcast is probably accessible on the ipad. The web app actally does not let you do much but play.

Good luck.