My TestFlight pool was full, so last night, I deleted any testers who hadn't installed or used a beta build in the past 6 months.

Apple provides filters to show and delete these. But apparently, they work about as well as I should've expected from a part of App Store Connect that very few people at Apple probably ever use. So some people were deleted incorrectly.

If you still want to be on the TestFlight and were inadvertently deleted by this, sorry about that! You should be able to re-join using the link in the settings screen.

Everyone hates the strict episode limits, so they're gone!

Now you have visibility and manual control over which episodes are being excluded from the limit, indicated by a diamond-plus in the status label in the episode's cell. In the queue (…) menu on each episode cell, you can toggle this state. It's set by all of the previous paths — manually adding/downloading/playing an episode — and now also if an episode is manually added to a playlist.

There's also now a Set All button in the Episode Limit settings screen.

Please discuss Unforgetful over there! Thanks.

This is a major feature release for both Premium and non-Premium customers:

• Replay Podcast: Re-listen to a podcast from the beginning
• Smart Complete (Premium): Marks episodes complete with less than 5 minutes left if you haven't listened in 48 hours. (In Delete settings)
• Chapter preselection (Premium)
• Premium audio effects: Mono audio, parametric EQ, volume normalization, background-noise reduction, and a de-esser!
• New "keep oldest" mode for Episode Limit
• Sleep Timer now fades out at the end
• Playlists can now be sorted by episode duration
• Search within the current transcript
• Re-Transcribe to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Export transcripts as SRT files

Along with these changes:

• Episode Limit is now strictly enforced so it can consistently match everyone's expectations. On first run, episodes beyond the limits you've set will be deleted!
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed missing artwork in clip-sharing and stalls while exporting clips
• Fixed potential performance issues

Finally, Overcast Premium's price for existing subscribers before April 2026 will increase from $14.99/year to $19.99/year on September 1.

The last price increase was two years ago, and this new price reflects both increased hosting costs (not even AI, just regular servers!) and also, I believe, significantly increased value with all of these recent improvements and feature additions.

New subscribers since April have been paying $29.99/year, which will not change.

This was TestFlight build 1175.

Previous version

New in this build: (there was no public build 1174, FYI)

• Added an Episode Limit confirmation sheet on first run, if many old episodes will be deleted, with the option to disable those limits
• More protection from failed downloads repeating excessively
• VoiceOver fixes to the episode-cell rotor actions

This build will go to the App Store if no major issues are found!

From the previous 2026.8 builds:

• Episode Limit is now strictly enforced so it can consistently match everyone's expectations. On first run, episodes beyond the limits you've set will be deleted!
• New "keep oldest" mode for Episode Limit
• Replay Podcast: Re-listen to a podcast from the beginning
• Smart Complete (Premium): Marks episodes complete with less than 5 minutes left if you haven't listened in 48 hours. (In Delete settings)
• Chapter preselection (Premium)
• Premium audio effects: Mono audio, parametric EQ, volume normalization, background-noise reduction, and a de-esser!
• Sleep Timer now fades out at the end
• Playlists can now be sorted by episode duration
• Search within the current transcript
• Re-Transcribe to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Export transcripts as SRT files
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed missing artwork in clip-sharing and stalls while exporting clips
• Fixed potential performance issues

New in this build:

• Fixed old, skipped episodes showing up when episode limits are changed
• Fixed distorted audio while seeking with Background Noise Reduction enabled

This build will go to the App Store if no major issues are found!

From the previous builds:

• Episode Limit is now strictly enforced so it can consistently match everyone's expectations. On first run, episodes beyond the limits you've set will be deleted!
• New "keep oldest" mode for Episode Limit
• Replay Podcast: Re-listen to a podcast from the beginning
• Smart Complete (Premium): Marks episodes complete with less than 5 minutes left if you haven't listened in 48 hours. (In Delete settings)
• Chapter preselection (Premium)
• Premium audio effects: Mono audio, parametric EQ, volume normalization, background-noise reduction, and a de-esser!
• Sleep Timer now fades out at the end
• Playlists can now be sorted by episode duration
• Find text in the current transcript
• Added transcript viewing to episode-info screens (if the episode and transcript are downloaded)
• Re-Transcribe to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Export transcripts as SRT files
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed missing artwork in clip-sharing and stalls while exporting clips
• Fixed potential performance issues

New in this build:

• Episode Limit is now hard-enforced. If you say to keep only 3 episodes of a podcast, it only allows 3 episodes, whether they were manually added, starred, or whatever. If you try to add a fourth, it'll prompt you to turn off the limit first.
• Episode Limit can now keep X oldest unplayed episodes instead of just X newest episodes, which finally allowed…
• Replay Podcast: Re-listen to a podcast from the beginning! This resets all progress for a podcast and sets it to keep X oldest episodes. (In the podcast screen's "…" menu)
• Smart Complete (Premium-only): Marks episodes complete with less than 5 minutes left if you haven't listened in 48 hours. (In Delete settings)
• Duration-sorted playlists now respect priorities, too
• Fixed jumpy seeks potentially around skipped chapters, and tightened up the chapter-row padding
• Made the de-esser adaptive so it doesn't need a frequency control anymore

From the previous builds:

Premium audio effects! These have been built into Voice Boost's engine for years but needed a UI, and they're finally here:

• Mono audio
• Parametric EQ
• Customizable volume normalization (adjustable Voice Boost, basically)
• Background-noise reduction
• De-Esser

And more:

• Chapter preselection (Premium-only): Finally. And deselected titles that recur on subsequent episodes of the same podcast will automatically skip themselves. So if e.g. you want to skip the ATP "Ending Theme" chapter every time, just deselect it once, and it'll auto-skip in every episode after that.
• The sleep timer now fades out at the end
• Playlists can now sort by episode duration
• Transcripts are now searchable
• Added transcript viewing to episode-info screens (if the episode and transcript are downloaded)
• Added "Re-Transcribe" feature to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Transcripts can now be exported as SRT files
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed potential performance regressions introduced in the last update
• Fixed another cause of slow performance with very large collections
• Fixed "…" menu on episodes rendering badly with Button Shapes accessibility option
• Fixed missing artwork in clip-sharing and stalls while exporting clips

OK! I'm done for 2026.8 after this. Bugfixes only after this, then App Store.

New in this build:

• Playlists can now sort by episode duration
• Fixed Custom EQ section being disabled
• Fixed "…" menu on episodes rendering badly with Button Shapes accessibility option
• Fixed missing artwork in clip-sharing, and stalls while exporting clips

From the previous builds:

Premium audio effects! These have been built into Voice Boost's engine for years but needed a UI, and they're finally here:

• Mono audio
• Parametric EQ
• Customizable volume normalization (adjustable Voice Boost, basically)
• Background-noise reduction (experimental, may not ship)
• De-Esser (experimental, may not ship)

And more:

• Chapter preselection (Premium-only): Finally. And deselected titles that recur on subsequent episodes of the same podcast will automatically skip themselves. So if e.g. you want to skip the ATP "Ending Theme" chapter every time, just deselect it once, and it'll auto-skip in every episode after that.
• The sleep timer now fades out at the end
• Transcripts are now searchable (within themselves, not across them… yet)
• Added transcript viewing to episode-info screens (if the episode and transcript are downloaded)
• Added "Re-Transcribe" feature to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Transcripts can now be exported as SRT files
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed potential performance regressions introduced in the last update
• Fixed another cause of slow performance with very large collections

New in this build:

Premium audio effects! These have been built into Voice Boost's engine for years but needed a UI, and they're finally here:

• Mono audio
• Parametric EQ
• Customizable volume normalization (adjustable Voice Boost, basically)
• Background-noise reduction (experimental, may not ship)
• De-Esser (experimental, may not ship)

And more:

• Chapter preselection (Premium-only): Finally. And deselected titles that recur on subsequent episodes of the same podcast will automatically skip themselves. So if e.g. you want to skip the ATP "Ending Theme" chapter every time, just deselect it once, and it'll auto-skip in every episode after that.
• Fixed transcription-search-dismissal errors, I think?
• Fixed certain transcription errors
• Fixed another cause of slow performance with very large collections

In the previous build:

• Added search within the current transcript
• Added transcript viewing to episode-info screens (if the episode and transcript are downloaded)
• Added "Re-Transcribe" feature to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Transcripts can now be exported as SRT files
• The sleep timer now fades out at the end
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed potential performance regressions introduced in the last update

• Added search within the current transcript (…John)
• Added transcript viewing to episode-info screens (if the episode and transcript are downloaded)
• Added "Re-Transcribe" feature to fix any broken transcripts or language mis-detections
• Transcripts can now be exported as SRT files
• The sleep timer now fades out at the end
• Fixed incorrect tracking of some listening stats and history entries
• Fixed potential performance regressions introduced in the last update

You can join the TestFlight beta from the app's settings screen.

This is a big one!

• New playback speeds up to 5X (previously maxed out at 3X, which was really 2.9X due to Apple audio-API limitations)
• Smart Speed and Voice Boost on Apple Watch downloaded/standalone playback
• Fixed AirPlay bugs (sounds minor, but I assure you, it was not)
• Fixed sync bugs
• Fixed streaming bugs
• Reduced storage usage
• Improved performance, especially with large collections
• Overcast should now be suggested more often when you connect AirPods

This was TestFlight build 1168. (Previous release)

New in this build:

• More reliable streaming playback on slow or spotty internet connections

Previous builds:

• Added new playback speeds up to 5X
• Apple Watch standalone playback now supports Smart Speed and Voice Boost
• Fixed AirPlay bugs
• Fixed sync bugs
• Reduced storage usage
• Improved performance, especially with large collections
• Overcast should now be suggested more often when you connect AirPods

If no major issues are found in this build, it's heading to the App Store!

New in this build:

• Upgraded maximum speed to 5X; speeds above 3X now go in 0.2X increments instead of 0.1X
• Fixed wrong speeds sometimes being shown for the recently-used-speed buttons
• Deleting or marking-played the current episode now auto-loads the next one again (unless you select Stop After Each Episode)
• Overcast should now be suggested more often when you connect AirPods
• Fixed another source of excessive storage usage
• Fixed rare causes of background termination
• Fixed rare lockups at launch with large collections
• Fixed total resyncs often being needed if your iPhone storage filled up
• Fixed "…" icon in episode cells animating weirdly after the menu is dismissed

Previous builds:

• Added new playback speeds from 3.1X to 4X
• Apple Watch standalone playback now supports Smart Speed and Voice Boost
• Fixed Apple Watch sync bugs
• Fixed AirPlay 2 audio glitches
• Fixed more sync-undoing-changes bugs
• Improved audio-engine performance under thermal-throttling conditions
• Improved list UI performance in certain cases
• Fixed potential causes of the UI locking up
• Fixed potential causes of data not being saved until the app is restarted

New in this build:

• Added new playback speeds from 3.1X to 4X. (And these are real speedups, not just trimming gaps out of the audio at speeds above 3X.)
• Apple Watch standalone playback now supports Smart Speed and Voice Boost!
• Fixed Apple Watch sync bugs
• Fixed AirPlay 2 audio glitches (this was a doozy!)
• Fixed more sync-undoing-changes bugs

In the previous build:

• Improved audio-engine performance under thermal-throttling conditions
• Improved list UI performance in certain cases
• Fixed potential causes of the UI locking up
• Fixed potential causes of data not being saved until the app is restarted

• Improved audio-engine performance under thermal-throttling conditions
• Improved list UI performance in certain cases
• Fixed potential causes of the UI locking up
• Fixed potential causes of data not being saved until the app is restarted

Build 1164 is now released as version 2026.7 in the App Store!

This was a major bugfix release:

• Fixed incorrect ordering of new episodes in playlists with priority settings
• Fixed excessive storage usage in certain error conditions
• Fixed streaming sometimes marking episodes as played if the download failed
• Fixed sync sometimes resetting your changes shortly after you make them
• Fixed notification-menu actions (Delete, Queue) failing
• Fixed episode progress resetting to 0:00 in certain error conditions
• Fixed incorrect durations on certain MP3 files
• Fixed a common cause of background termination
• Worked around a CarPlay issue in the latest iOS betas

I'm not afraid to say that most of these fixes were assisted by AI, and without using it, I probably never would've found them on my own (I'd been trying for a long time).

Overcast remains almost entirely human-written, but I'm happy to let AI help me find and fix the toughest bugs that my sloppy human brain creates.

(Previous version)

Hoping to head to the App Store soon!

New in this build:

• Fixed incorrect durations on certain MP3 files
• Fixed a common cause of background termination
• Worked around a CarPlay issue in the latest iOS betas

In the previous builds:

• Fixed incorrect ordering of new episodes in playlists with priority settings
• Fixed excessive storage usage in certain error conditions
• Fixed streaming sometimes marking episodes as played if the download failed
• Fixed notification-menu actions (Delete, Queue) failing
• Fixed sync sometimes resetting your changes shortly after you make them
• Fixed episode progress resetting to 0:00 in certain error conditions

If you're not on the TestFlight yet, you can join from the app's settings screen.

New in this build:

• Fixed streaming sometimes marking episodes as played if the download failed
• Fixed notification-menu actions (Delete, Queue) failing
• Fixed an "Invalid Audio File" bug introduced in the previous build

In the previous build:

• Fixed sync sometimes resetting your changes shortly after you make them
• Fixed incorrect ordering of new episodes in playlists with priority settings
• Fixed excessive storage usage in certain error conditions
• Fixed episode progress resetting to 0:00 in certain error conditions

If you're not on the TestFlight yet, you can join from the app's settings screen.

I keep hearing that AI is getting incredibly good at finding bugs in software, so I'm not going to hide the truth here: I used Claude to find and fix the top-reported bugs in Overcast. These are so nuanced, intermittent, or difficult to reproduce that I haven't been able to fix them myself for months (or years):

• Sync sometimes resets your changes shortly after you make them
• Incorrect ordering of new episodes in playlists with priority settings
• Unexpectedly large storage usage (usually corresponding to download failures)
• Episode progress resets to 0:00 on some failures or output-device changes

For each one, I gave an AI prompt like "Users are reporting X behavior, which is probably related to component Y. Figure out why, fix it, and add an exhaustive test suite to verify the fix."

Fixing them all, excluding tests, was only 82 changed lines of code.

Some are hard to test (like the progress-resetting one, which relies on unusual conditions like AirPods crashing), but I reviewed each change, and they all look good to me — and I never would've figured them out on my own.

If you don't want to use an app that has ever been touched by AI, I understand. Everyone has a line, and everyone has their reasons.

I've seen what it can do for my situation, and I'll gladly use AI, selectively and intentionally, to make my software better and solve my customers' issues in ways that I never could on my own.

If you're not on the TestFlight yet, you can join from the app's settings screen.