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RSS Podcast Downloader

A simple Python script for downloading podcast audio files from RSS feeds.

Features

• Parse podcast episodes from RSS feeds
• Download podcast audio files
• Display download progress bar
• Automatically skip already downloaded files
• Support for limiting the number of downloads
• Filenames include publication date and title
• Support for importing podcast lists from OPML files
• Support for concurrent downloading of multiple podcasts
• Save podcast descriptions and metadata in JSON format
• Organize downloads into audio and description folders
• Smart duplicate detection using episode identifiers

Installation

1. Make sure you have Python 3.6 or higher installed
2. Clone or download this repository
3. Install the required dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Basic Usage

Download all episodes from a single podcast:

python podcast_downloader.py https://example.com/podcast.xml

This will download all podcast episodes from the specified RSS feed to the downloads directory.

Command Line Options

• -o, --output-dir: Specify output directory (default: downloads)
• -l, --limit: Limit the number of episodes to download
• --no-skip: Do not skip existing files

Example

Download the latest 5 episodes to a custom directory:

python podcast_downloader.py https://example.com/podcast.xml -o my_podcasts -l 5

Using the Example Script

We provide an example script that can download several popular podcasts:

python example.py

Saved Metadata

For each podcast, the following directory structure is created:

downloads/
├── audio/
│   ├── 20230101_Episode1.mp3
│   ├── 20230108_Episode2.mp3
│   └── ...
└── description/
    ├── podcast_info.json
    ├── 20230101_Episode1.json
    ├── 20230108_Episode2.json
    └── ...

The metadata files contain detailed information about each episode, including:

• Title
• Description
• Summary
• Publication date
• Author
• Duration
• Episode number
• Season number
• Tags
• Image URL
• Unique identifiers (GUID and audio URL hash)

Common RSS Feed Examples

Here are some RSS feed URLs for popular podcasts:

• Podcast Index: Browse the directory at https://podcastindex.org/ to find RSS feeds for thousands of podcasts
• Xiaoyuzhou FM: Find the podcast in the Xiaoyuzhou App, share the link, then open it in a browser to locate the RSS feed URL
• Spotify: Spotify doesn't provide RSS feeds directly, but you can use third-party services to find equivalent RSS feeds
• Google Podcasts: Copy the podcast URL and use converter tools to find the corresponding RSS feed

Notes

• Please respect content creators' copyright
• Downloaded files are for personal use only
• Some RSS feeds may require authentication or have access restrictions # RSS-Podcast-Downloader