Which app became Google Podcasts' replacement destination in 2024?

Google Podcasts Is Gone — Here's Where Your Shows Moved

If you opened Google Podcasts one day in 2024 and found it had vanished, you weren't imagining things. Google officially shut down the dedicated app and migrated the entire podcast experience over to YouTube Music — a move that surprised plenty of listeners but made a lot of strategic sense once you understood the bigger picture.

The Timeline of the Switch

Google announced the transition in late 2023, giving users a runway to prepare. By April 2, 2024, Google Podcasts was fully discontinued in the United States. Internationally, the wind-down followed shortly after. Google built a migration tool directly into the process, letting users export their podcast subscriptions and import them straight into YouTube Music with minimal friction. Your followed shows, your listening history — it was all transferable.

Why YouTube Music?

On the surface, combining podcasts with a music streaming app feels a little odd. But Google had a clear logic here. YouTube has quietly become one of the most-used podcast platforms in the world — millions of creators already upload podcast content as video or audio-only files directly to YouTube. Consolidating everything under the YouTube Music umbrella meant Google could stop splitting its audio audience across two separate products and double down on one destination instead.

It also fits YouTube Music's broader ambition to compete head-to-head with Spotify, which has aggressively pushed into podcasting since acquiring companies like Anchor and Gimlet. Having both music and podcasts in a single app is now essentially the industry standard, and Google needed YouTube Music to match that.

What the Experience Looks Like Now

Inside YouTube Music, podcasts sit alongside songs and albums in a dedicated section. You can browse by category, follow shows, and pick up episodes right where you left off. The app also pulls in podcasts that exist natively on YouTube — so video podcasts that creators upload directly to the platform are also discoverable in the same space.

For casual listeners who were already YouTube Music subscribers, the addition of podcasts essentially cost them nothing extra. For die-hard Google Podcasts users who loved its simplicity, the transition was a bit of an adjustment — YouTube Music is a heavier, more feature-packed app by comparison.

A Pattern of Google Product Shutdowns

This wasn't the first time Google retired a beloved app, and it almost certainly won't be the last. Google has a well-documented habit of building products, growing an audience, then folding them into something larger — or shutting them down entirely. Google Podcasts joined a long list that includes Google Play Music, Google Stadia, and Inbox by Gmail.

The silver lining this time? At least Google pointed users toward a clear destination and gave them the tools to get there. For podcast listeners, YouTube Music is now the official home — like it or not.