Introduction

Podload is a radically simple Python tool to manage podcasts with no fuzz. It includes the following features:

• Add new podcasts via their URL
• Automatically download the latest episodes
• Automatically clean up old episodes
• Defining the retention time for each podcast
• Putting podcasts into subdirectories, even nested ones

I'm using this tool to always have the latest podcasts on my Aftershokz Xtrainers.

Installation

Install the package via PyPi:

pip3 install podload

Install the package from source:

pip3 install podload@git+https://git.confirm.ch/confirm/podload.git

Usage

The usage of podload is quite simple:

usage: podload [-h] [-d] [-b BASEDIR] {info,clean,add,download,update,set-retention} ...

The simple podcast loader.

positional arguments:
  {info,clean,add,download,update,set-retention}
    info                                display the podcast infos
    clean                               clean old episodes
    add                                 add a new podcast
    download                            download the latest episodes
    update                              shortcut for download, followed by clean
    set-retention                       set a new retention

options:
  -h, --help                            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug                           enable debug mode
  -b BASEDIR, --basedir BASEDIR         base directory

For example, to add the "Wired UK" Podcast to /Volumes/XTRAINERZ you can run this:

podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ add https://www.wired.co.uk/rss/podcast/wired-podcast

The podcast is added to a sub directory, together with a metadata file which holds all the important bits for the podload manager.

From now on you can download the latest episodes by executing:

podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ download

To clean up old episodes, run this:

podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ clean

To download and clean up, run this:

podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ update

To display all the infos run this:

podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ info

The WIRED Podcast (14 days retention):
    2021-08-20 14:15 - Afghans are racing to erase their online lives
    2021-08-27 11:00 - Is your name ruining your life?
    2021-08-26 09:00 - Introducing Food People

By default a retention time of 7 days is used. However, you can set another podcast default when adding the podcast by using the -r argument, or by calling set-retention afterwards. You can also override the retention temporarily when cleaning or downloading podcasts by using the -r argument.

# Permanent:
podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ add -r 14 https://www.wired.co.uk/rss/podcast/wired-podcast
podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ set-retention "The WIRED Podcast" 14

# Temporarily:
podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ clean -r 14
podload /Volumes/XTRAINERZ download -r 14