Auto Podcasts

Auto Podcasts lets you subscribe to any podcast, configure how many episodes to keep, and have new episodes downloaded and synced to your devices automatically — no manual intervention required.

What it does

• Subscribe — Search for any podcast by keyword using the Podcast Index catalog. Add as many subscriptions as you like.
• Auto-download — For each subscription, choose how many of the latest episodes to keep (1–5), or switch to manual selection (pick up to 5 specific episodes yourself).
• Background refresh — iPodRocks periodically checks every subscription's RSS feed for new episodes. The refresh runs while the app is open, on a schedule you control in Settings.
• Device sync — Episodes that have been downloaded are automatically copied to each device that has Auto Podcasts enabled, into that device's configured Podcasts folder.

How it works

Subscriptions and episode selection

Each subscription has an auto-download mode:

Mode	What it does
Last N episodes (1–5)	Always keeps the N most recent episodes on the device. As new episodes arrive and older ones fall outside the window, they are no longer synced going forward.
Manual selection	You pick up to 5 specific episodes by checkbox. Only those exact episodes are downloaded and synced.

The badge on each subscription card reflects the current mode: last 2, last 5, manual, etc.

Download states

Each episode goes through these states:

State	Meaning
pending	Queued for download, not yet started.
downloading	Currently being fetched.
ready	Downloaded and available for device sync.
failed	Download was attempted but errored. Shown with a red ✕.
skipped	Episode was outside the auto-download window and was not fetched.

Device sync

Auto Podcasts syncs independently of the main Sync panel. When the background scheduler runs (or when you click Download now manually), iPodRocks:

1. Checks each subscription's feed for new episodes.
2. Downloads any episodes that fall within the configured window.
3. Copies ready episodes to the Podcasts folder of each device that has Auto Podcasts enabled.

The per-device toggle (auto_podcasts_enabled) lives in the device profile. Only devices with that toggle on receive auto-downloaded episodes. The destination folder defaults to Podcasts inside the device root (configurable per device in the Devices panel).

Podcast Index API

The search and RSS feed fetching use the Podcast Index API, which is free for personal use. You need an API key and secret — both are stored locally and never leave your machine except when making API calls to api.podcastindex.org.

How to set it up

1. Get a Podcast Index API key

1. Go to api.podcastindex.org/signup and create a free account.
2. Copy your API Key and API Secret.

2. Configure credentials in Settings

1. Open Settings (gear icon, top right).
2. Scroll to the Auto Podcasts section.
3. Enter your API Key and API Secret.
4. Click Test Connection — you should see "Connected".
5. Toggle Enable auto refresh & sync on if you want background downloads.
6. Set a Refresh interval (15 min, 30 min, or 1 hour).
7. Click Save.

3. Subscribe to podcasts

1. Open the Auto Podcasts tab (microphone icon in the sidebar).
2. Click Search & Subscribe.
3. Type a keyword — results appear live as you type.
4. Click + Add next to any podcast. It appears in your subscriptions grid immediately, with its artwork.

4. Configure each subscription

Click any subscription card to open its episode modal:

• Auto-download dropdown — pick how many recent episodes to keep (1–5) or switch to Manual selection.
• Manual mode — checkboxes appear next to each episode; tick up to 5 to mark them for download.
• Download now — trigger an immediate refresh and download, without waiting for the scheduler.
• Delete episodes — click Select (top-right of the episode list) to enter delete mode. Checkboxes appear on every episode. Use Select all / Deselect all to bulk-select, then click Delete (N) to remove the selected episodes. Deleting an episode removes the local file, removes the copy from every synced device, and marks it skipped so it is not re-downloaded. Click Cancel to exit without deleting anything.
• Unsubscribe — removes the subscription, deletes all local episode files, and removes episode copies from every synced device. Stops all future downloads for that podcast.

5. Enable Auto Podcasts on a device

Open the Devices panel, select a device, and enable the Auto Podcasts toggle in the device settings. Once enabled, every scheduler cycle copies newly ready episodes to that device.

Tips

• Manual selection is useful for podcasts where you only want specific back-catalogue episodes, not the latest ones.
• Download now is handy after subscribing — it immediately fetches the feed so you don't have to wait for the next scheduler cycle.
• If a download shows failed, click Download now to retry.
• The subscriptions grid shows podcast artwork fetched from the Podcast Index. If artwork doesn't display, check that the URL is reachable.
• Podcast episodes are placed in <device root>/<Podcasts folder>/<Podcast title>/<Episode Title>.mp3 on the device. Rockbox and most players recognise them automatically.
• To rename episodes that were previously synced with numeric filenames, open the episode modal, use Select → Select all → Delete, then trigger a sync. The episodes will be re-downloaded and re-synced with their proper titles.