Publish an episode: progress and updates

Publishing finalizes your episode, adds it to your RSS feed and podcast website, and lets connected platforms pick it up. This page is part of Publishing and Distribution. Before you publish, check commercial use and AI disclosure.

How to publish

1. Open the episode in the editor. Publish Episode is in the toolbar.
2. If the episode has no audio yet, the button is inactive and clicking it explains why. Click Generate Audio in the episode details first. The button becomes active once audio and any video production finish.
3. Click Publish Episode, then choose Publish Now or Schedule for Later (see Scheduling episodes).
4. Click Publish Episode in the dialog to confirm.

If your narration is out of date, a Choose which audio to render dialog appears first. The options are described in Choose which audio to render. To save a file instead, use the separate Download button.

What happens when you publish

• Your RSS feed updates immediately with the episode.
• Your podcast website shows the episode to listeners.
• Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube pick it up through your RSS feed, which can take up to an hour. Submit your feed once through distributing to podcast apps.

Publishing does not consume credits. Every publish creates an export record, listed on the Exports tab. After publishing, see plays in Analytics.

Publishing progress

After you confirm, the dialog shows the current step. When a new render is needed, it also shows a percentage and progress bar, and the step moves from Preparing your episode... to Rendering audio and video... to Finalizing episode... (Scheduling episode... for a scheduled publish). When no new render is needed, the step reads Publishing episode... or Scheduling episode.... You cannot close the dialog while publishing runs. To leave without waiting, click Podcast Home; publishing continues in the background.

While a new render runs, the script and timeline editors are disabled. See editing while an episode renders. When it finishes, you land on the episode with a published status. For what each status means, see Episode Statuses.

If you edit the episode during a render, publishing can still use that render. If your edit leaves a line without audio, publishing stops and tells you how many lines need audio. Otherwise you see a Published from an earlier version notice, meaning the published render does not include your later edits. To publish them, use Edit Episode and Update Episode as described below.

Updating a Published Episode

Once an episode is published or scheduled, Publish Episode is inactive. To change the script, audio or visuals, click Edit Episode on the episode page, make your edits, then click Update Episode. Listeners get the new version as the same episode, with the same publish date. A scheduled episode keeps its scheduled time. Generate audio for any new lines first. Updating is free. To take an episode down instead, see Unpublishing episodes.

Publishing a private podcast

If the podcast's visibility is Private, the publish dialog first shows a This podcast is private notice with two choices: Make podcast public or Keep private and publish. Keeping it private still finalizes the episode, but it only becomes available to your API and integrations, with no website or RSS feed. Making the podcast public switches to the flow above. See podcast visibility for what Private means.

Audio-First Publishing

Publishing renders and delivers audio by default. It does not render video or show a video player on your podcast website unless you turn that on. To publish video too, open Edit Podcast > Advanced and enable Publish Video to Website. From then on, every publish for that podcast also renders video, and the website shows the player for those episodes. The setting is off by default and affects only future publishes. Download Video always renders video regardless of it. See Editing Podcast Details.