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How to add Your Podcast to iTunes

Quick walkthrough that will help you save time and money

Podcasts are a new meal in my ear-diet. The first one I had come across was RadioLab and this simple idea of knowledge sharing has followed me since. Not long ago I have joined a new and growing project - a Lithuanian podcast called Podkastas (yes, they didn’t overthink the title but it’s clever!). Justas Markus and Tomas Laurinavičius, who are the hosts of the show, accepted my application and I am now in charge of dealing with the technical aspects of our podcast.

Our recent step was to add our podcast to iTunes. The reason why we decided to add Podkastas episodes there was quite obvious — it would be pragmatic for people using Apple products. We weren’t expecting any huge reach afterwards compared to what we have now because podcasts are still a developing niche in Lithuania. You might have other expectations, but the goal is clear — the one thing you need is the know-how.

More and more, when you read tutorials online, you come across a line that sounds similar — “buy this app and it will solve everything for you”. What if I don’t want to buy? I am a programmer, so I am always interested to know how things work inside-out, but mostly it’s just the curiosity, the thought of “could I figure it out myself?”. Of course, you definitely can. And you’ll save some money in the end. That’s win-win and you’ll see how to do it yourself.

What do we need to begin with

If you already have a podcast it’s likely you’ve already established a website where you post your newest episodes. That means you have a server and it’s basically the main requirement. I assume you already know how to manage your server files through an FTP client. I use Filezilla for this job.

My iTunes folder structure on the server

In order to get your podcast episodes on iTunes:

create an iTunes folder (you can call it whatever suits you) in your server.

(you can call it whatever suits you) in your server. upload your episodes . Podcasts can be in the M4A, MP3, MOV, MP4, M4V, PDF, and EPUB formats. This guide will focus on MP3.

. Podcasts can be in the M4A, MP3, MOV, MP4, M4V, PDF, and EPUB formats. This guide will focus on MP3. create your podcast cover photo and store it in the same folder. The photo must be from 1400 x 1400 pixels to a maximum size of 3000 x 3000 pixels, according to Apple’s specs.

and store it in the same folder. The photo must be from 1400 x 1400 pixels to a maximum size of 3000 x 3000 pixels, according to Apple’s specs. upload or create an empty podcast.xml file. We will add it’s contents later on.

The easy part is done. Now comes the “pain in the butt” kind of situation.

Preparing podcast’s RSS feed

The thing I have struggled with the most is the RSS feed (the one in the podcast.xml). Apple requires you to fill in the details of your podcast and episodes in order for iTunes to understand it and deliver it to the audience the right way as well as delivering messages when RSS feed is updated (eg. new episode is added). That’s what the RSS feed is for and we’ll learn the know-how.

You can edit the XML file with a free editor like Sublime Text — it will be easier to distinct what is what when the right parts are highlighted. You can view the full RSS setup I have ended up using here. Copy it over your XML file and then edit it for yourself. I have filled only the required and highly recommended fields.

The main block of a podcast RSS feed

Brackets hold the description of what should be inserted inside. Most of the tags are self-explanatory though some need additional attention. I will focus on those.

language tag: uses a code for a language the podcast is in. The list of language codes can be found here.

itunes:author, itunes:owner tags: if you have multiple authors/owners — iTunes does not support it. You’ll have to list them separated with commas. The owner email is extremely important — it will be the email all actions related with iTunes and your podcast will be processed.

itunes:image tag: an absolute link to an image you just uploaded to your iTunes folder.

Podcast’s RSS feed category structure

Now comes your podcast’s category structure. The full list of categories can be found at the very bottom of the Apple’s specs page that I’ve already mentioned. The left column of categories is human-readable the right column of categories is machine-readable (the one you need to copy to the RSS feed). You can deduce the simple logic of itunes:category tags of the image above while comparing them with Apple’s specs and arrange your own category tags.

Episode details in RSS feed

Obviously, this is the most important part. The way you’ll define one episode is the way you’ll define others as well so we need to make it right in the first try.

itunes:summary tag — your episode brief description should go into this tag. You should only replace the text and leave the CDATA element (you could take this example into consideration <![CDATA[text_here]]>). You can place HTML links here as well.

pubDate tag — the publication date of this episode. Episodes will be sorted in iTunes listing according to this date. This date should also be in the same format (RFC 822, to be specific) it is displayed above. You can use this tool to ease you from the manual conversion.

The most confusing tags in RSS feed

Thus, I have explained tags you could encounter problems with and there are only a few left undiscussed.

guid tag: an absolute URL (link) to an episode sound file you have uploaded (just like the cover image).

enclosure tag: the URL is the same as guid tag’s. Now you need to define a length and a type:

the type attribute requires a MIME type of the file you’re using. You can find audio-related MIME types listed here. Find the right format and copy over the MIME type between the quotes of the type attribute.

the length attribute is the size of your audio file in bytes. You can see the number of bytes in Filezilla’s window (the first image I’ve shared) or by right-clicking and viewing the file properties. You enter that number between the quotes of the length attribute and you’re done.

Now if you want to add another episode just copy-paste <item>…</item> tag and edit the insides relating to your newest episode.

Finally! RSS feed is done! Don’t forget to upload it through an FTP client to your server, so the file there would be up-to-date.

Submitting your podcast to iTunes

OK, so you went so far and you want to finally add your podcast to iTunes. Doable, totally doable. Just kidding, let’s get on with it.

Firstly, what you’d want to do is to test your RSS feed. You could drop your link into Feed Validator. If it shows as few errors as in ours (and it should if you used our XML as a starting point), you’re good to go.

Now you can submit your podcast’s RSS feed link to iTunes. iTunes will show up and ask you to fill your podcast’s XML link. Enter the link and click continue. Follow the process.

Apple will contact you through the owner email address you’ve defined in the RSS feed. Your podcast will be reviewed and will be live within 1–2 days.

If you add a new episode in the RSS feed and upload it to your server, Apple will renew iTunes podcast feed in 24 hours.

That’s it, your podcast is iTuned!