Pinecast changelog

WordPress Sync Plugin v2.3.0

Matt — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:36:36 -0000

Version 2.3.0 of our WordPress Sync plugin. You can upgrade in your WordPress admin dashboard.

This release includes a number of fixes:

When your feed can't be refreshed, you'll see an error and the "last updated" time won't change.
New versions of PHP no longer show a deprecation warning.
Hosts that lack the fileinfo extension will no longer cause a sync to crash when loading artwork.
Invalid categories and tags are no longer saved when no categories or tags are selected.

There are some new features as well:

Timecodes in your show notes link the player to that time.
The UI of the Pinecast settings page is now cleaner and follows the design patterns of WordPress more closely.
Posts now display episode chapters.

Podcast Chapters and M4A support

Matt — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 17:20:30 -0000

We've just launched one of the biggest updates to the Pinecast in a while. This new update has a lot in it, and it should make your experience with Pinecast a bit better.

Podcast chapters

We now fully support podcast chapters. If you upload an audio file with chapters in the metadata, we'll read them out and apply them to your episode. You can edit them in the brand new "Chapters and clip placeholders" editor:

This UI replaces the existing clip placeholders field. We now show a GUI that allows you to seek through your episode to add clip placeholders and chapters on the waveform timeline. Chapters that were in your audio's metadata are pre-loaded into the editor.

Getting chapters

We make chapters available across your podcast:

Your RSS and JSON feeds will link to a Podcasting 2.0-compatible chapter manifest. This is read by apps like Apple Podcasts.
You can include chapters automatically in your show notes. Under your podcast Settings tab, visit the Episode formatting view. By default, chapters are not added to show notes. You can add them to the end or the beginning of your show notes.
There's a new chapters page element available for podcast websites. All of our presets include the ability to show podcast chapters when someone visits the page for an episode.
We write chapters into your audio file metadata, so even folks who download the audio file will see them.
Update your WordPress Sync plugin to 2.3.0 to pull chapters in to your WordPress website.

More chapters integrations are coming soon.

M4A support

Historically, we've supported reading and writing metadata for MP3 files (via ID3 tags). Now, we also support the same features for M4A. We'll include:

Episode metadata (title, podcast name, etc.)
Episode artwork, if set
Chapters (as chpl tags)

If you already use AAC or M4A audio files, you don't need to change your workflow: keep using Pinecast as you always have and your files will benefit immediately.

As always, we do not re-encode your audio files.

Drafts

Episode drafts now store your clip placeholders and chapters. Previously, clip placeholders were not saved in drafts.

Text-to-speech warnings

Matt — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 17:16:58 -0000

It's our policy that audio uploaded to Pinecast is not fully text-to-speech or otherwise AI-generated. Content that you publish must include some non-generated content.

Now, when you upload a file that appears to be fully generated, we'll warn you on the New Episode page that the file might violate our terms of use.

Uploading content that violates our terms of use on our free demo plan will result in an automatic account suspension. On a paid plan, your account may be flagged for a review by our team.

Export from Descript to Pinecast

Matt — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 18:24:44 -0000

If you're a Descript user, you can now export audio directly from Descript to Pinecast. You can read Descript's documentation on how to do this here:

https://help.descript.com/export-and-share/pinecast

When you export from Descript to Pinecast, we'll ask you which podcast you'd like to post the episode to. When you've confirmed the podcast, we'll pull the episode and its transcript from Descript.

Rather than publishing directly, we create an episode draft with the details from Descript and load up the New Episode page with that draft pre-loaded. You can publish it immediately or save the changes to publish at a later date.

Integrations

If you have a product that exports audio for podcasts and would like to integrate with Pinecast like this, please get in touch! We'd love to hear from you.

Generative cover art

Matt — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:32:28 -0000

All podcasts require cover art to be valid: this is a requirement from podcast apps and directories. However, this can be an outsized ask for some folks, especially those who have limited vision. Over the years, our support system has received over a dozen requests to create artwork by users who aren't able to easily do it themselves. This is a real problem, and a significant hurdle for folks with certain accessibility needs to start a podcast.

Generative AI offers an incredible tool for folks who aren't able to easily create their own cover art. On the New Podcast and Podcast Settings pages, we now allow paid customers to generate artwork using Black Forest Labs' FLUX.2 model. You can generate up to ten images every hour.

You'll first be presented with information about how the feature works, including details about what information is sent to our AI provider and how this affects you. On the second step, you can provide a description of what you'd like the artwork to look like.

We'll then generate the image, which can take up to a minute. When the image is returned, we'll show it along with a text description.

Our use of AI

In building this feature, we evaluated many image models, and settled on FLUX.2 for a few reasons:

The model made very few mistakes when generating text
The model avoids making artwork that would be outright rejected by most podcast apps and directories
In our tests, the generated images were the most aesthetically interesting

The text descriptions are created using Gemma 4. Gemma does a great job of describing the image subjectively, while also reading back the text exactly (including typos, which is important for folks who can't see issues in the image).

Both models are open-weight, and run in an environment where no data is retained or repurposed for any reason. Only the information strictly required to complete the request is sent. As always, we do our best to use AI as responsibly as possible. You can always read about how Pinecast uses AI on our AI use page.

New themes

Matt — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:23:43 -0000

Starting today, there are four new podcast website theme presets available in the site builder. We've been spending a lot of time improving the site builder and the tools behind the scenes that make podcast websites possible. Through that effort, we've been able to craft four beautiful new themes that have striking colors and typography.

Check them out in the site builder today:

Broadsheet
Nightcap
Sunday
Signal

As usual, all of our themes use accessible defaults, are fully SEO-optimized, and built to load as quickly as possible.

Analytics privacy

Matt — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:19:01 -0000

Pinecast allows you to configure an analytics provider to send analytics data to. We support many providers, including Dynamo, Podcorn, and more. These providers work by adding a "prefix" to the URLs of your episode audio. When a listener requests the audio, they access the provider before accessing Pinecast. This allows the provider to track the listen.

This behavior, though, gives the analytics provider access to more than just details about the listener. If someone is a subscriber through your Tip Jar, the analytics provider also gets access to information about the private feed that your listener accesses Pinecast through. That feed includes information about episodes that are not public.

While we recommend only using services that you trust, you can now disable forwarding analytics data to providers from paid Tip Jar feeds. This ensures that the provider doesn't get access to content that is otherwise non-public. Keep in mind that protecting your show in this way effectively disables the analytics provider for listeners who have a paid subscription.

Podscribe

Matt — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:17:20 -0000

The Analytics settings tab on your podcast dashboard now allows you to forward your analytics data to Podscribe.

Easier artwork and metadata

Matt — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 15:57:13 -0000

One of the most persistent issues on a major Pinecast page has been the artwork and metadata question that's posed when you upload your audio. First, some important context.

Why artwork and metadata is hard

The information that you upload to Pinecast is what goes into your RSS feed. This is available to podcast apps that pull your feed, but anyone downloading the episode audio as a file will lose the title, podcast name, and artwork.

Additionally, some podcast apps do not use the artwork as it's listed in your RSS feed. Instead, they pull the artwork as an image file from inside the audio file's metadata (e.g., ID3 tags). If the artwork is not correctly added to the metadata, some listeners simply won't see it.

What we've done in the past

In the past, when you chose an audio file, we'd inspect it to ensure it contained artwork and metadata. If it did not, we'd prompt you to add those items. When you added artwork or metaata, we'd change the audio file to include them before we uploaded the file to our servers.

This created a dependency: you can't save the episode until the audio is uploaded. The audio can't be uploaded until artwork and metadata are added. And we can't add the artwork and metadata if they haven't been given to us yet. For some folks, this was confusing. For others, it was annoying.

What we're doing now

You'll now see episode audio as a field just like you previously did. You'll also see two new fields:

A switch to add metadata to your episode. When selected, we'll automatically add metadata. We recommend leaving this enabled unless you're setting your own metadata.
An episode artwork upload field. You can add episode artwork or leave it empty: the field is optional.

What's different is that we'll handle the processing on our end: we'll ensure the artwork and metadata are added after the file has been uploaded and saved. This means you're not nagged during the upload process. Skipping a step by accident doesn't require you to scroll back up.

Editing, too

One consequence of our old setup was that artwork and metadata were added only at the point that audio was uploaded. If you wanted to change your artwork, it required you to re-upload the audio file. Similarly, changing details like the name of your episode wouldn't be saved to the metadata.

With the new setup, this all "just works". You never need to re-upload audio to change artwork or metadata, and the Edit Episode UI should behave exactly as you expect it to.

Dark mode on login pages

Matt — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 17:44:50 -0000

On pages where you're signed out, like the login or signup pages, we now support dark mode. This also applies to the tip jar, so your listeners will also get to enjoy dark mode.

Note: the appearance is based on the setting your browser informs us of. If you've saved a custom dark mode preference (other than "auto") in your Pinecast settings, your override won't apply until after you've signed in.

Schedule posts for time

Matt — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:21:54 -0000

Under Settings > Episode Formatting in your podcast dashboard, there's a new setting at the bottom of the page.

This setting changes the default publish time on the New Episode page. For instance, set it to 4:00pm New York time, and your episodes will always default to 4:00pm New York time.

Time zone aware

If your episodes are set to 4:00pm New York time and you travel to Chicago, visiting the New Episode page will show 3:00pm—the page is smart enough to know that you're in a different time zone, and keep the publish time matching your preference.

Daylight savings aware

Publish times don't change when daylight savings changes. Set your episode to publish at 4:00 New York time, and you'll never be surprised at 3:00pm or 5:00pm when the seasons change. Your publish time will always default to 4:00pm.

New analytics time ranges

Matt — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:17:59 -0000

The analytics in your dashboard got two new time ranges: "Last month" and "This month so far".

Last month

"Last month (month name)" differs from "Previous month" in that "Previous month" shows the last thirty days, whereas "Last month (month name)" shows the full previous month. Today is October 7, so "Last month (September)" would show the full analytics for September (rather than September 7 through today).

This month so far

"This month so far" does exactly what it says on the tin. Today (October 7), selecting this option would show October 1 through the present moment.

Importing transcripts

Matt — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:31:41 -0000

When importing your podcast from another host, we'll now bring along your existing transcripts, so long as they use the appropriate <podcast:transcript> tags. We'll do our best to choose which transcript format works best with Pinecast (if there's more than one), and convert it if necessary.

We support importing transcripts in the following formats:

VTT
SRT
SBV
HTML (in the format specified by the Podcasting 2.0 standard)
JSON (in the format specified by the Podcasting 2.0 standard)

One important note: we don't store transcripts as raw text, we keep them in a format that lets us use them for other purposes. If the data we pull in for a transcript isn't valid (for instance, the transcript includes implausible timestamps that move backward through time), we won't be able to perform the import.

Adding a transcript to new episodes

Matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 22:32:01 -0000

When creating an episode previously, the only transcription option was to have the episode transcribed. Now, you can choose to upload a VTT, SRT, or SBV file directly on the New Episode page.

Subscriptions no longer cancel immediately

Matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 22:30:34 -0000

When you cancel your Pinecast subscription, it now stays active until the end of the payment period. If you decide to re-enable your subscription before the end of your payment period, that option is now available to you, and you'll continue to be billed.

October 2026 Accessibility Update

Matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 21:41:29 -0000

Hey Pinecasters, I'm super excited to announce the release of our October 2026 accessibility update. We're getting ready to make some noise about our committment to accessibility at Pinecast, and part of that is understanding how well we are doing. While preparing the report, we made a choice: every accessibility finding (that is, every issue that could affect how well a user interacts with our software) either needs to be a deliberate choice made for a good reason, or it's a bug.

We spent the last two weeks combing through hundreds of thousands of lines of code. We found 200 problems. 11 were for features that are currently under construction or not yet live, 18 were flagged as deliberate choices, and one is pending additional changes. 170 problems were fixed.

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of all of the individual changes that were made, but we took a lot of time to get things polished, and I want to highlight some of what shipped.

For folks who don't use a pointing device

Everything that works with a mouse should work with a keyboard.

We fixed numerous issues that prevented you from tabbing through the UI in a sensible way. In thirteen places, we fixed the browser focus jumping back to the top of the page: to all the folks that have been bitten by issues like this, we're terribly sorry for the frustration.
Ten types of controls were hard or impossible to use without a mouse. It's now easier to use the site builder, analytics, audio players, and our pricing pages.
Eleven different parts of pinecast.com didn't make it clear what was selected as you tabbed through the page. We now rigorously test that each and every control that can be focused shows that it's focused.

For folks who use a screen reader

While good, we often didn't go far enough to help screen readers understand exactly what users were interacting with. Almost seventy different parts of Pinecast were updated to make screen reader support world-class.

Everything that you can interact with—from buttons to text boxes to sliders—all now carry information needed for screen readers to understand them correctly. That accounted for 33 of the problems fixed.
It's now easier to access our support chat, which had been hidden in some cases.
The old, awful calendar control is gone. We're so sorry it took so long to replace this.
Titles, headings, and landmarks on the page are now correctly structured and ordered. It should be a lot easier to get around.
When something happens, it'll be announced—be it a save, edit, or delete.

For folks with low vision or color blindness

We looked at colors, sizes, and how browsers zoom in.

Everything is much higher-contrast. We've made a ton of changes around how controls like buttons, charts, and focus outlines around the site look.
The site builder has better color pallettes that meet minimum contrast requirements. If you use a podcast website preset that you haven't customized, your site automatically picks up the color changes.
For places where color differentiates different kinds of information, we now use other details like different shapes or textures.
If you zoom in or use a large text setting on your device, our pages look better and avoid requiring you to scroll horizontally.

For folks with sensitivity to motion or need a little extra time

We fixed twelve problems across our properties.

"Reduce motion" settings now affect 100% of Pinecast—no unexpected transitions or animations.
Notifications don't disappear on their own: you won't see things disappear as soon as your eyes land on them.
Tooltips now work for folks who only use a keyboard as well. No hidden information.

For folks who are deaf and hard of hearing

Podcasting is an audio medium, but we've invested and continue to invest in transcripts.

Transcripts are now on by default. You can opt in or out of transcripts on a per-episode basis.
All web players now link to transcripts when they're available. This comes in addition to captioning support, which already existed.
The podcast playlist player now shows captions in full.

The curb-cut effect

The best part of accessibility support is that everyone benefits, not just the folks that the improvements were designed to help.

Any difficult-to-reverse decision (deletions, subscription changes, etc.) now have a confirmation step.
Lots of places where errors happened without much explanation now do a much better job of explaining what went wrong. Fixing the error for low-vision users made the errors better for all users.
Semantic changes to podcast websites better follow web best practices, which can make it easier for search engines and other crawlers to index your content.

For your listeners, too

These improvements aren't just on the pages you as a podcaster see. We've fixed the pages your listeners see as well.

Our site builder now recommends improved colors when you choose custom options that aren't high enough contrast to meet web accessibility guidelines. We do our best to suggest not just a good color, but tell you which color setting is the best one to change.
Podcast websites saw improvements to the markup, making them friendlier to screen readers and folks who use features like "Reader mode".
Embeddable players and subscription links have better descriptions on controls, have better contrast, and work better with the keyboard.
Show notes keep their formatting and language, making them read better with a screen reader.

Not just a one-off release

We wrote tests that check the accessibility of every page on Pinecast. If something changes that affects accessibility, we have an exhaustive suite that will flag the problem and require changes before it can be shipped to you. Across all of our properties, we've added almost 40K lines of code to test for accessibility, covering things like the contrast of the color pallettes we use in light and dark mode, the colors we offer in the site builder, that every control has focus rings for folks using their keyboard to tab through the UI, and more.

What's next

More automated testing is on the way: our improvements aren't worth it if we don't stay ahead of the curve when it comes to accessibility.
The tip jar is going to see a big UI update soon, and we're excited to help ensure your listeners who require accommodations have a great experience while using it.
We'll be publishing a formal report with the full details of accessibility at Pinecast.

Transcription enabled by default

Matt — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:27:37 -0000

Starting soon, new podcasts will have automatic transcription enabled by default. We now allow you to choose on an episode-by-episode basis whether to transcribe the audio, so no transcription is performed without any visual consent. Automatic transcription can still be disabled in your podcast settings.

Analytics audit update

Matt — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:43:59 -0000

Periodically, we perform an audit of our analytics data to ensure we're doing the best job we possibly can to keep your analytics free from junk/bot listens. With the rise of AI, this work has gotten increasingly difficult, as it's become easier and easier for bad actors to download episodes covertly.

We don't normally announce analytics audits, but this one is notable because it includes the most substantial changes we've had in a long time.

First, we've dramatically expanded our corpus of data used to determine whether a listen came from a legitimate listener device or from a bot running in a data center. We've more than 10x-ed the number of rules that we run against each and every listen.
We've worked to classify even more podcatchers and browsers, including ones that are not well known. For podcasters, this means you'll see more names appear under your "Listens by agent" view.
We've combed through our old rules and weeded out ones that aren't useful anymore. This is important, because some old rules are doing more harm than good. For example, apps claiming to be Google Podcasts are definitely illegitimate: Google Podcasts was rolled up into YouTube Music quite a while ago.
Many of our existing rules were refined, helping to mark somewhat-suspicious listens from obscure devices as definitely legitimate or spammy.

Process change

Historically, for big updates like this, we'd re-process existing analytics data. While this has been our policy (it gives you the most accurate information possible), it would be very disruptive for us to do this to all Pinecast customers today given the substantial amount of bot traffic we're seeing this year. Starting today, we're changing that policy. If you'd like your analytics data filtered using the new rules, we're happy to do so upon request. Please reach out to Pinecast support through the chat in your dashboard or at support@pinecast.com and we'll be glad to assist you.

Site Builder 2.0

Matt — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:42:00 -0000

We've redesigned the Pinecast site builder to be cleaner and easier to understand.

The site builder is one of the most feature-rich parts of Pinecast, but its sheer size and complexity has made it hard for many folks to fully take advantage of. This month, we took a pass at cleaning up the design and making the UI more intuitive.

First, there's no longer multiple layers of tabs and dropdowns: there's one clean sidebar. Click into a section and drill down to find what you need. The back button at the top returns you to the preview section instead of immediately leaving.

Next, the Layout tab:

Before, the Layout tab grouped related parts of the site design together: header and footer, homepage and episode lists, episode pages, etc. This makes sense logically, but making simple changes to what you can see in the preview area required you to navigate between tabs and sub-tabs.

Click between pages in the preview, and the Layout tab will follow you, updating to show what's on that page.

Now, the Layout tab shows all of the parts of the page you can currently see, top to bottom. Not sure what you're looking at? Hover over a module in the sidebar and it'll highlight the corresponding area in the preview.

Click on a module in the sidebar, and we'll show you all of its options.

Run into trouble?

This is a big change, and the site builder has hundreds of features with millions of combinations of layouts and theme options. We've done our best to avoid any regressions, but accidents happen. If you run into any trouble, be sure to reach out so we can get things patched up for you right away.

Pinecast is translated

Matt — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:24:00 -0000

Starting today, Pinecast is available in four languages other than English: Danish, French, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

From the beginning, Pinecast was built with localization in mind: we've followed best practices for formatting text so that when we inevitably decided to launch in another language, we'd be able to hit the ground running. Thanks to ten years of planning ahead, we were able to launch four new languages this month.

Changes to your dashboard

If you're an existing customer, your dashboard will probably continue showing you English text. If you'd prefer to use one of the translations, you can change the language we use for your account by visiting the Settings page.

The langauge that you set in the dashboard is the language shown for you. The language of your podcast is always set on the settings page for your podcast specifically, and your podcast can have any language, not just the ones Pinecast is translated into. Your language preference affects:

The dashboard
Emails you receive from Pinecast

We do not use your language preference to identify you, and your language choice remains private.

Changes for your listeners

Your content

If your podcast is in one of the languages Pinecast is translated into, you'll notice some improvements:

We'll automatically start using the appropriate translations for text included in your show notes, like when you add a link to your Tip Jar.
If you use our podcast websites or short links features, the text in the preview images you see when sharing a link on social media should be translated.
The embeddable players for your show will be translated into the language of your podcast.
Podcast websites hosted on Pinecast will show some translated text as appropriate. Note that some English text may still appear: this is likely customizable in your Site Builder.

Your Tip Jar

If you have paid subscribers who use your show's Tip Jar, they'll start seeing translated text in emails and in their tip dashboard. They'll also have the option to change their language preference after logging into the tips dashboard.

Feedback

We've done our best to translate Pinecast well, but we may have made some mistakes. If you notice any issues with the translations, please don't hesitate to reach out to support@pinecast.com to let us know.

Also, please let us know if you speak a language that you'd like to see Pinecast translated into. We're keen to expand our localization coverage in the future!