Pinecast changelog

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!

Tip Jar subscriber updates

Matt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:13:00 -0000

You can already send special episodes to paid subscribers through your Tip Jar. However, if you just want to send a quick update—such as why you haven't posted an episode—there's not been a way to do that.

Now, under the Communication > Paid Subscriber Updates tab on your podcast dashboard, you can send email updates to your subscribers.

Subscribers to your Tip Jar will receive your updates at a scheduled date and time, which you can set. If you're not ready to schedule an update, you can save it as a draft to publish later.

All Pinecast customers on the Starter plan can send five updates per month per podcast. If you have our Growth add-on, you can send unlimited updates.

When replying to an email, subscriber responses will end up in the following locations:

If you have listener feedback enabled and your listener feedback email address is turned on, responses will be collected on the Communication > Listener Feedback tab.
If you have email privacy enabled (on Settings > Email Privacy), responses will be forwarded to your email inbox. Your personal email is masked with the email privacy address.

Otherwise, responses are not collected.

Last but not least, listeerns can read all of your email updates from their subscriber dashboard at https://tips.pinecast.com.

Remove feed redirects

Matt — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 14:00:00 -0000

We've made a change to make it easier to move your show back to Pinecast. When you set up a feed redirect from Pinecast to another podcast hosting service, it previously required customer support assistance to remove the redirect if you decided to move back. This is no longer the case: on the same Settings > Feed Redirect tab where you set up the redirect, you can now cancel it.

Be aware: feed redirects move your subscribers, and removing the redirect does not move those subscribers back to Pinecast. You'll need to set up a redirect from the RSS feed you had redirected Pinecast to (pointing back at your Pinecast feed) to move your subscribers back to Pinecast. Please reach out to support for help; we know this can be a bit tricky.

Change slugs

Matt — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0000

Up until now, it's not been possible to change your podcast's slug on your own. The slug is the bit of text that appears in your show's feed URL, website URL, short links, and elsewhere. It's a lowercase, alphanumeric (along with hyphens) bit of text that uniquely identifies your show on Pinecast, and it's used in places where we need a machine-friendly way to identify your show.

Changing your slug was previously fraught because it required some non-trivial checks to be done before the change could be made. We made the call to put this burden on our customer support team, since they could make sure everything was done correctly and to help Pinecasters understand the consequences of this change.

Nearly ten years later, we've ironed things out so this process is not fraught. Visit the Settings > Change Slug tab in your podcast dashboard to be walked through the process of updating your show's slug—no customer support interaction needed.

After changing your slug, there's no need to take further action on your end, like updating apps and directories with new URLs. Most apps and directories will automatically update within about 24 hours, and your listeners will continue to hear your show as you'd expect.

YouTube integration

Matt — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0000

We've made it easier to drive listeners to your podcast on YouTube. On the Distribution tab, you'll find a new YouTube entry with the ability to link your YouTube channel.

After submitting your podcast to YouTube, you'll have the option to link your YouTube account. Once linked, we'll do our best to detect and reference your podcast automatically—no extra setup required.

There are a few cool benefits to linking your YouTube channel:

Short Links and Subscribe Widget

Your Short Link pages and embeddable subscribe widget will now include a link to your podcast on YouTube.

With just a few clicks, you'll automatically start driving listeners to your YouTube channel.

Podcast reviews

We'll start pulling YouTube comments from your podcast and aggregating them in the Podcast Reviews section on your dashboard (under the "Communication" tab).

As with Apple Podcasts and Podchaser reviews, you'll get an email notification when a new review is indexed. You can also use the Notifications feature (part of the Crew add-on) to get Slack, Discord, or webhook notifications when a new review is indexed.

Timecode support in WordPress

Matt — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:28:05 -0000

In the Pinecast WordPress Sync Plugin, adding timecodes to your show notes now links them on your site. For example:

# Chapters

00:00 Intro
00:45 Topics covered
01:21 First topic

In the example show notes above, 00:00, 00:45, and 01:21 will be linked to the corresponding timecodes in the player. This works with both the WordPress built-in player as well as the Pinecast embeddable players.

This functionality is available as of version 2.3.0 of the plugin.

Newly imported shows alert you when a redirect is active

Matt — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:21:28 -0000

For folks bringing their podcast over to Pinecast, we'll now check the feed you've imported from to make sure that it gets redirected properly. When the redirect is active, you'll get an email confirming it. If the redirect does not become active within a few days, you'll get an email reminder.

Updated Podcast Reviews

Matt — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:33:44 -0000

Podcast Reviews has gotten a fresh new look.

Now located under the Communication tab in your podcast dashboard, Podcast Reviews now has a cleaner, simpler interface. We've made it more obvious how to filter reviews, we've made the review list less visually distracting.

We've also added a new Analytics tab:

This new tab shows a numerical overview of your podcast reviews, showing you a breakdown of ratings, how many ratings you've over the past 90 days, a breakdown of which service your reviews are left on, and a map of where the reviews originate from.

Network player

Matt — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 21:49:06 -0000

The Crew add-on just got a new feature: the network player.

The network player is a variant of our existing playlist player that's available on individual podcasts. This version of the player shows episodes from all of the podcasts in a network. If you run a website for your podcast network, this is a simple way to allow your audience to see what's new—and all it takes is copying and pasting some simple HTML.

The network player has the same limits as the podcast playlist player: 100 recent episodes shown (up to Unlimited when combined with the Hi-Fi or Growth add-ons). And of course, you can customize the colors used.

Listener feedback got an upgrade

Matt — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:21:21 -0000

Listener feedback allows your listeners to leave messages for you. The messages they type are shown on your podcast dashboard. There's also episode-specific feedback URLs which can be included in your show notes as an auto-include.

This feature has been a part of Pinecast for almost a decade. Originally part of the legacy Pro plan, it was moved to the Growth add-on. In recent years, we've added a feedback section to the Tip Jar, allowing your paid listeners to leave feedback for you directly.

Today, we have a few announcements:

More availability

First, we're making listener feedback available to everyone with a Starter subscription. If you're a paid subscriber, you now have access to listener feedback.

Feedback over email

We previously announced @listener.email addresses to protect your privacy. Now, we're announcing @listener.feedback email addresses: every podcast on Pinecast gets its own email for feedback.

If your show's slug is my-show, your listeners will be able to reach out to my-show@listener.feedback with their messages. Those will be collected on your podcast dashboard.

All of the moderation features available with the web-based listener feedback tool are available as part of the email listener feedback tool.

New Growth add-on benefits

Making feedback available to Starter customers takes away one of the perks of the Growth add-on. We didn't forget about you! We're introducing a new Insights tab that offers an report on listener sentiment and offers suggestions on future topics.

Note: this report is generated in part with generative AI.

More configurability

You can now individually enable and disable listener feedback in each place it's available:

On the web
Via email
In the Tip Jar