# CastKeeper: Podcast Player — Save, Sync & AI, Privately

> Podcast player and archive with AI tools, private storage, and no subscriptions. (iPhone/iPad app by 121 Gigawatz.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/castkeeper-podcast-player/id6760909808 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [121 Gigawatz](https://appshunter.io/developer/1886751010)
- Category: News, Entertainment
- Price: $2.99 (on sale, was $4.99)
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 2 App Store ratings · 3 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 84 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-04-19
- Data updated: 2026-08-25
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/castkeeper-podcast-player/id6760909808/reviews.md

## What is CastKeeper?

CastKeeper: Your Podcasts. Yours Forever.

Featured in Podnews, The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, Hampton Roads Business Journal, and loved by users across the world.

Some people collect vinyl. Some collect baseball cards. You collect podcasts — let's keep it that way.

Episodes get pulled. Shows move. Feeds vanish. If you love a podcast, you should be able to keep it. Forever.

Archive audio and video podcasts, transcripts, chapters, artwork, notes, and metadata to storage you control:

iCloud Drive
Dropbox
External USB drives
S3-compatible storage
Your own cloud

When someone says "Sorry, that episode isn't available anymore," you can politely smile… and press Play.

Meet SmartKeep SmartKeep is CastKeeper's fully automatic archiver. Enable it on any subscribed show, pick a storage destination, and let it run — zero effort, full sync across your devices. Love an episode? Lock it and it stays forever (everything you archive manually is locked by default, too). SmartKeep is included with your one-time purchase. No subscriptions, ever.

We Mind Our Own Business Some apps know everything you listen to. CastKeeper would rather not.

No account. No ads. No subscriptions. No creepy tracking. Tracking Prevention cuts podcast analytics requests, because your podcast player shouldn't have a side hustle.

Listen Smarter

AI summaries
Smart chapters
Searchable transcripts
Live Captions
Episode translation
Timestamped notes
Powerful search It's almost unfair to the pause button.

A Podcast Player That Actually Plays Podcasts Audio and video playback, CarPlay, Picture in Picture, Mini Player, Sleep Timer, and private sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Everything you'd expect — plus the part where your library doesn't randomly evaporate.

Built for Everyone VoiceOver, Dynamic Type with dyslexia-friendly fonts, Live Captions, keyboard navigation, high-contrast display, and accessibility features throughout.

Buy It Once No "Premium." No "Premium Plus." No "Premium Ultra Max Podcast Infinity." Just CastKeeper — a one-time purchase for all your devices, including Family Sharing. Your podcasts. Yours forever.

## Key features

- Private podcast archiving
- Searchable transcripts
- Smart summaries and chapters
- Timestamped notes and annotations
- Audio and video playback
- Cross-device progress sync
- PDF export with citations

## Chart rankings

- #15 in Top Paid · News (US App Store)

## Recent user reviews (3 of 3)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/castkeeper-podcast-player/id6760909808/reviews.md

### 5/5 — This is a have to have

*2026-08-21*

I don’t have to worry about losing great podcasts if the channel or podcasts are no longer available.

### 5/5 — Awesome App

*2026-07-19*

Fabulous app and great support from the app developer. Easy transcript export just what I was looking for youtube integration if possible would be great and so much potential for the future road map please keep up the great work.

**Developer response:** Thank you for the review and glad you’re loving the app. Unfortunately, Google’s YouTube restrictions make it difficult to fit our model, but definitely in the research folder. 

Look forward to even more new features soon! And welcome to our community of users!

### 5/5 — Feature Requests and Bug

*2026-05-17*

Hello, I really like this podcast app. It is the best podcast app that I have found and I really like the UI. 

I just bought the app. Whenever I go to download an episode, the progress bar reaches 100%, but then the episode says that it is not downloaded and it shows that I can download it again. I click the download button and it does the same thing. 

Also, when clicking the transcribe or generate chapter buttons, they stay greyed-out, and nothing resolves. I’m unsure if this depends on the podcast episode being downloaded or not, but the transcription and generate chapter buttons do not seem to work. I don’t know if they have progress bars to monitor them, but if they do not, could you add that feature?

EDIT: I did figure out that I needed to enable “AI Processing on Battery”. However, I am still unable to generate chapters on battery. Even if it is not recommended for one to do this, could you add the ability for one to do so? Also, I’m unsure if the SOTA models are less intensive. 

Also, I have bought the podcast app Aisten as well. It does a wonderful job in transcribing podcast. It uses the SOTA V1, V2, and V3 engines to transcribe the podcasts. I was wondering if you could also add these as options to select to do the transcriptions? 

It also has a feature to both bookmark (saved only when viewing that specific podcast) and favoriting (a global way to view all favorites across all podcast) different lines of texts within the transcription. Could you add a feature similar to this? It would also be nice to have bookmarks for specific time codes. It would be nice to have a way to add notes to time codes, as well as having a note section for the given episode. I would like to use this app to do a little research. 

Another feature that would be cool is to be able to export a selected segment of the podcast’s audio. 

Thank you for your efforts. This podcast app is amazing. If there are other features I think of, I will update my review. 

Thanks

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your feedback, and that you enjoy CastKeeper! 

Your feedback and suggestions for features are wonderful, and I will be looking at these suggestions and seeing how to incorporate them into a future release. CastKeeper was made for podcast enthusiasts like yourself, and your feedback will certainly be evaluated and put in my backlog for review. 

Be sure to keep an eye out for updates to not miss any of the new features and fixes! Thank you!

## Frequently asked questions about CastKeeper

### What is CastKeeper?

CastKeeper is a podcast player and archive application designed for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It allows users to discover, play, save, and organize podcasts with features like searchable transcripts and private archiving.

### How much does CastKeeper cost?

CastKeeper is a one-time purchase priced at $4.99. There are no subscriptions, ads, or hidden fees associated with the app.

### Does CastKeeper have ads?

No, CastKeeper is completely ad-free. The app explicitly states 'No ads' and is designed to provide an uninterrupted listening experience.

### Can I save podcasts permanently with CastKeeper?

Yes, CastKeeper allows you to archive audio and video podcasts directly to storage you control, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or S3-compatible storage, ensuring long-term access.

### What smart listening tools does CastKeeper offer?

CastKeeper provides smart listening tools including searchable transcripts, smart summaries, smart chapters, episode translations, timestamped notes, transcript annotations, and PDF export with citations.

### Is CastKeeper available on Android?

Based on the provided data, CastKeeper is built specifically for Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Macs. It is not currently available on Android.

### How often is CastKeeper updated?

The latest version of CastKeeper was released on 2026-06-24, indicating recent development activity. The app is updated to version 2026.4.1.

### What is the age rating for CastKeeper?

CastKeeper has an age rating of 17+. This suggests it may contain mature themes or content suitable for older audiences.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 2026.5.3 — 2026-08-16

INTRODUCING SMARTKEEP — YOUR INTELLIGENT ARCHIVER

Never miss archiving an episode again. SmartKeep is CastKeeper's fully automatic archiver, completely at your control. Head to any subscribed podcast in your Library, enable SmartKeep, choose your storage destination, and let it run. Four options to fit how you collect. Zero effort to keep collecting and full sync across your devices!

Love an episode and never want it to disappear? Lock it. Episodes locked by SmartKeep stay in your archive forever — and every episode you archive manually is always locked by default. Your storage, your podcasts, your rules.

SmartKeep is included with your one-time purchase — no subscriptions, no ongoing costs. We'd rather see people collecting podcasts than collecting subscriptions. 

Other improvements in this release:

• Smart Summaries for episodes start faster
• AI Chapters tuned for better chapter names and more accurate markers
• Fixed an issue where transcription and AI Chapter generation would queue unexpectedly when a device was connected via USB-C
• General UX refinements and performance improvements

### 2026.5.2 — 2026-08-04

In this release, CastKeeper tuned its feeds to bring you some minor fixes and improvements to our queue.

- The Up Next view when your queue is empty will now look like your queue and include up to 10 of the next episodes that will play.
- Fixed an issue with Calendar view in Podcast that caused some distortion on smaller devices
- The Search Bar and Bulk Selection buttons will now be visible even during long scrolls of your amazing library and archives
- Bulk actions interface has been enhanced for easier use.

### 2026.5.1 — 2026-07-29

CastKeeper has an all new Queue system to make organizing what's Up Next even easier! Easily add, remove or reorder episodes in your queue, including from the MiniPlayer.

This version also includes the following:
- You can now bulk select episodes in your Archive and perform actions on multiple episodes. 
- Subscribe or Follow Podcasts directly from the Discovery tab without opening the podcast.
- Sleep Timer has a new, easier to use, UX to make it even better to wind down with a great episode.
- For our power users, you can now subscribe to podcast feeds hosted on your own home server or LAN. 
- Squashed a few minor bugs and tweaked a few UI elements to make it easier for all users

### 2026.5.0 — 2026-07-14

You know those updates that say, “Bug fixes and performance improvements”?

Yeah… this isn’t one of those.

CastKeeper has been rebuilt from the ground up with a beautiful new interface, smoother navigation, richer visuals, and countless improvements throughout the app. It’s faster, cleaner, and designed to make archiving and listening to your favorite podcasts even better.

Why?

Because podcasts disappear. Yours don’t have to. 

The private sync engine has been rebuilt from scratch, making it faster and more reliable to keep your library in sync across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac—all while keeping your data private. Because your podcast app shouldn’t know more about you than your best friend does.

Also new in this release…

• Archive public podcast episodes directly to external storage. Plug in a USB drive or other supported storage, pick it in Settings, and start building your forever library.
• New Tracking Prevention helps reduce podcast analytics and tracking requests during playback. Listen to your podcasts—not someone else’s analytics dashboard. Tell these trackers the “P” in IP doesn’t stand for public and opt-out of tracking. 
• Expanded Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) detection means smarter, cleaner AI summaries. 
• New Discovery themes make it even easier to find your next favorite show.
• Smaller app. Smaller archives. More room for podcasts. No regrets. 
• Fixed Home Screen widget playback issues, improved performance, increased reliability, and generally taught CastKeeper a few new tricks.

Thanks for all of your feedback, feature requests, and bug reports. They genuinely help shape every release.

Your podcasts. Yours forever.  CastKeeper.

### 2026.4.1 — 2026-06-24

• NEW: Archive podcasts directly to Dropbox.
• NEW: Siri Shortcuts support, including Archive Current Episode and Add Podcast Note. Assign them to the Action Button or Back Tap.
• NEW: App Clips for shared episodes. Friends and family can now preview CastKeeper and listen to shared episodes instantly.
• NEW: Tap timestamps in show notes to jump directly to that moment in an episode.
• NEW: Explicit podcast and episode indicators, with options to hide explicit content.

IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES:
• Faster app launch, syncing, and overall performance.
• Improved CarPlay episode sorting.
• Improved transcript archiving reliability.
• Larger Mini Player controls for easier navigation.
• Scrolling episode titles in the Mini Player.
• Added +Ads playback indicators for dynamic ad insertion.
• Reduced app download size.
• Added support for Apple's Age Verification and Significant Change APIs where required.
• Various bug fixes and stability improvements.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*