Technical updates for hosting providers

RSS feed requirements

Apple Podcasts will make the following updates to RSS feed requirements in 2023:

Owner tag

Update: No longer supported

The owner tag (<itunes:owner>) and its contact information, including email, will no longer be recommended. Apple requires creators have an active Apple ID to submit a show, and users designated with an Admin role in Apple Podcasts Connect will be contacted using the email associated with their Apple ID as needed. Creators can also add an email address for each show in Apple Podcasts Connect.

GUID

Update: Will be required

GUID (<guid>) has long been the standard for providing a unique identifier for episodes. GUIDs are defined by your hosting provider and must be unique for each episode in your show. Apple will require that each episode contains a GUID. Apple Podcasts will not process new episodes with duplicate GUIDs.

Conditional GET

Update: Recommended

For hosting providers, the Apple Podcasts RSS feed crawler will start reading and accepting ETag (HTTP 1.1) or Last Modified Date (HTTP 1.0) headers. Using these headers will limit the amount of data that our crawler will need to request if no changes have been detected.

Atom feeds

Update: No longer supported

New shows in Atom feed format will no longer be accepted and any remaining shows will no longer be updated.

Submitting new shows

Additionally, when creators submit a show to Apple Podcasts, it is made available in the Apple Podcasts catalog after clicking Add. Creators can then use the show URL provided in Apple Podcasts Connect to generate promotional assets and begin promoting a show. Apple Podcasts continues to review all new shows and subscriptions and it may take up to 24 hours for new shows and episodes to appear in search results and personalized recommendations. Learn more about how search works on Apple Podcasts.