Sideload your podcasts with ease! This update brings important sideloading fixes and performance improvements for the best podcast listening experience.
Castro is a beautiful, full-featured podcast player that makes it easy to track and manage lots of podcasts at the same time. Only listen to the episodes you want and easily skip the rest, queue up hours of podcasts at a time and enjoy a seamless listening experience with carplay compatibility, chapter support, trim silence and much, much more!
HOW IT WORKS
1. New episodes land in the NEW tab. Read their descriptions, add episodes you like to your QUEUE, and clear the rest.
2. Press play to listen to episodes from your QUEUE in order. Queued episodes are downloaded automatically.
3. Re-order your QUEUE to plan your next few hours of listening at any time. Browse your LIBRARY to review the back catalogue, quickly access starred shows, and see your listening history.
Subscribing to a podcast is no longer a commitment to listen to every episode. You don’t have to manage a huge list of subscriptions or choose a few shows and miss the rest.
WHY OUR USERS LOVE CASTRO
• Drag and drop podcasts to plan your listening with Castro’s unique queue
• An elegant dark mode and thoughtfully designed sleep timer offer the best in night time podcast listening.
• CarPlay support makes it easy to pick up where you left off while driving.
• Apple Watch app to control playback and select another episode from your queue.
• Episode notifications include a summary of the episode to help you decide if it interests you. Play, queue or clear the episode directly from the notification without opening the app.
CASTRO PLUS
Castro Plus is an optional paid subscription available for $24.99/year (includes a one-week trial). Plus unlocks a range of advanced features:
• Trim Silence — With this option on, the app will analyze audio as it plays to detect silent parts and accelerate those parts. Get through more episodes faster.
• Enhance Voices improves the listening experience for many podcasts and makes it easier to hear in loud environments. Under the hood, Enhance Voices applies a dynamic compressor to increase volume just where it’s needed.
• Sideloading: Import audio files directly, just by dropping them in iCloud Drive
• Mono-Mix — Mixes a stereo podcast to mono, which makes it easier to hear podcasts that pan some guests on left/right channels.
• Chapter Support: Artwork, Skipping & Pre-selection.
• Custom settings per-podcast: Episode Limit, Trim Silence, Enhance Voices, Mono Mix, Skip Intros, Playback Speed.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
“Castro 3 is an incredible app.”
— The Sweet Setup
“Castro 3 is everything Castro already was, but better.”
— MacStories
Castro 3 Is a Great Modern Podcast App”
— Beautiful Pixels
“Unlike other podcatchers, Castro's primary virtue is its simplicity and ease of use. The app combines sleek visual design with crystal clear audio.”
— Tom’s Guide
CASTRO PLUS SUBSCRIPTION TERMS
Castro Plus costs $24.99 per year. Prices are in US dollars and may vary in countries other than the US.
Castro Plus is charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. It will renew on the day before the current subscription period ends. You can cancel auto-renewal any time from the Castro settings screen.
You can switch between the two subscription periods after you pick one, but your trial period will end immediately if you do, so it's best to wait till your free week is over before changing.
Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable.
Privacy Policy & Terms of Use: https://castro.fm/privacy-policy
The only issue we have with podcasts today? Keeping track of all of the good stuff. Castro acts as our podcast personal assistant. Once we’d rifled through the app’s vast (and we mean vast) offering, Castro helped us prioritize and organize what we wanted to hear—and clear our in-tray by deleting them once we’d listened.
Redesign introduced an annoying bug
christygcp
I love the redesign overall. This is my favorite podcast app by far, and the new filters just made it even better!I like to listen to the back catalogue on podcasts as I discover them. Now when you scroll down in the list of episodes for a specific show and then add an episode to the queue, it auto-scrolls back to the top. This is so annoying when I want to download 10 or so episodes at a time! Please fix this ASAP.I also have a feature request: when looking at lists of episodes, please provide an option to show only unplayed episodes.
nothing better. no, not overcast.
tiger226
i LIVE for this app. been using it since the pre-subscription days. gorgeous UI, everything makes sense with swipe gestures.. the inbox is perfect, i love the tiles option to show podcast cover art. i love having the inbox and queue separate.. i would love to have a separate queue for bedtime but that's another suggestion for another time. i would love an ipad/mac app but the ios app is polished, stable and beautiful. if you kept downloading overcast because you kept trying to see what everybody else saw in it and then didn't... like me... castro is for you. get castro , it's definitely worth it to support these killer developers and this perfect app.
Developer Response
Thank you so much for the kind words and review, tiger226! Really appreciate it :)
A lot of options, flawed UI
mingrosec
Love the ability to keep speed controls open at all times while still being able to control forward/back/pause, it’s the primary reason I’ve switched from Overcast bc they got rid of that feature. I really wish there were more button options available when tapping the episode, so you wouldn’t have to tap into the episode page of every episode to quickly mark several episodes as played or delete them. Also wish you could just tap on the podcast name or have a quick action to go to podcast show page instead of tapping into the episode page and tapping the bottom right.
- Fix for sideloading
- Fix for folders syncing across devices
- Fix an issue with backup/restore
- Other minor fixes
Version 2026.7.2
The developer, Maple Media Apps, LLC, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
User Content
Search History
Identifiers
Usage Data
Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
Maple Media Apps, LLC
Size
174.6 MB
Category
News
Compatibility
Requires iOS 16.0 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 16.0 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 16.0 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 13.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
