- You can listen to Podcasts on your Mac using the Podcasts app released in macOS Catalina.
- The Podcasts app makes it easy to find, subscribe, and listen to podcasts on your Mac computer.
- If you have podcast subscriptions on other Apple devices, they will show up on your Mac too, as long as you sign in with the same Apple ID.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
If you recently updated your Mac operating system to the newest version, Catalina, you might have noticed a new icon in your menu bar.
Before Catalina, you could access podcasts through iTunes. Now, Apple has added a podcast app to Macs that works much the same way as the Podcasts app on other Apple devices — it even has the same icon. Here's how to use it.
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How to listen to podcasts on your Mac
Find podcasts
If you subscribe to podcasts through the Podcasts app on another Apple device, and you're signed into your Mac with the same Apple ID as that device, your full podcast library is already available in the new Podcasts app on your Mac.
Better yet, if you start listening to a podcast episode and stop, the app will keep your place across all devices. So, you can start listening to a podcast on your Mac, and continue right where you left off on your iPhone or iPad, and vice versa.
Here's how to find podcasts in the Mac Podcasts app.
1. First of all, make sure that you have macOS Catalina. If you don't know how to check that, see our article, "How to check which version of macOS your Mac computer is running in 3 simple steps."
2. Open the Podcasts app. It looks like a purple box with a white "i" and two circles in the middle. If you can't find it in your menu bar, search for it using the magnifying glass icon at the top-right of your screen.
3. Click on "Listen Now" in the sidebar menu on the left to see the podcasts you already subscribe to.
4. Choose "Episodes" from the sidebar to view a list of unplayed episodes from your subscriptions, from newest to oldest.
5. Click on "Browse" in the sidebar to view a selection of podcasts you might want to listen to.
6. The "Top Charts" tab in the sidebar lets you see what podcasts are popular right now.
7. You can search for a podcast by typing in the search field at the top of the sidebar. Once the name of the podcast you want appears in the window to the right, click on it.
8. If you want to subscribe to a podcast, click on the blue "+Subscribe" button to the right of the window near the "Play Episode" button.
9. You can also download individual episodes by clicking the plus button next to their name and description.
10. To unsubscribe from a podcast, click on the three blue dots next to "Subscribed." This opens a menu where you can select "Unsubscribe" from a list.
When you do a search, you can use the button in the upper-right of the window to toggle your search results between "All Podcasts" available through the app and "My Library", which is just your own downloaded podcasts.
Listen to your podcasts
1. To listen to a podcast, simply select the podcast you want from your library or the store and click on the blue "Play Episode" button.
2. You can also click on the arrow next to an episode in the list of episodes, or on the podcast cover icon. The button will change to "Playing" while you're listening to an episode. You can click the button again to pause the podcast and it will change to "Resume Episode."
3. In addition, the controls in the bar at the top of the window show you the most recently played or currently playing podcast episode. You can use these controls to adjust the volume, pause, resume, and jump forward or backward in an episode.
4. Click on the icon next that looks like three stacked lines at the top-right of the Podcasts window to see "Up Next," a list of the podcasts that will play next in your feed. Click the icon a second time to hide "Up Next."
How to delete podcasts in the Mac Podcasts app
Podcasts do take up space on your hard drive, so you may want to delete episodes or even whole podcasts from your library from time to time.
The Podcasts app will automatically delete episodes after you listen to the whole thing. If you stop short, however, your library can get full quickly.
1. To delete a single podcast, click on the three blue dots next to the episode description in your library. From the menu that pops up, choose "Remove."
2. To delete all the episodes of a single podcast, click "Shows" in the sidebar, click the three dots on the cover of said podcast, and select "Delete from Library" from the pop-up menu.
Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech:
How to update your Mac computer to macOS Catalina, to get the latest features and software fixes
How to connect your Mac computer to a Bluetooth speaker for streaming audio
How to add music and other audio to your Apple Watch and listen to it from the watch
How to delete downloads on your Mac to free up space and help your computer run more efficiently
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