CastKeeper isn't just another player; it's a powerhouse for listeners who value ownership, discovery, and cutting-edge tech. We've stripped away the subscriptions and accounts to focus on what actually matters - building your personal podcast archive and discovering new podcasts.
Discovery: Follow the Voice
CastKeeper introduces the first Hosts View, letting you track your favorite personalities across the entire podcast landscape. Map out a creator's full portfolio and discover new content through the voices you already trust.
Archive: Permanent Personal Backup
Stop renting your library. CastKeeper allows you to archive episodes forever using iCloud Drive, an external drive, or your favorite S3-compatible storage provider. Build a personal, high-fidelity library that remains accessible even if a show is taken offline.
Advanced AI: Privacy-First Intelligence
Get premium features without the subscription. Powered by Apple Intelligence, CastKeeper delivers transcriptions, smart chapters, smart collections, and AI summaries with sponsor recognition.
In the Car & By Voice
CastKeeper is built for CarPlay and Siri from the ground up - browse your library, get a spoken Catch Me Up recap, and control playback entirely hands-free.
Unlike most podcast apps, CastKeeper is built on a foundation of user ownership and privacy. We don't require accounts, track your listening habits, or lock features behind subscriptions. Your library is your own, with the ability to archive your favorite episodes securely in your personal cloud storage. By leveraging Apple Intelligence for advanced features like AI summaries and smart chapters, we deliver a premium, privacy-first experience that puts you in control of your podcast listening.
CastKeeper is a Universal app built for iPhone, iPad, and Mac (Apple Silicon) with seamless, private cross-device sync powered by Apple CloudKit. CastKeeper requires iOS 26 (or macOS Sequoia) or later, and most of the app - playback, discovery, downloads, and on-device AI chapters and transcription - works the same on iOS 26 and iOS 27.
A few things do need iOS 27 specifically: Apple Intelligence's Private Cloud Compute, which powers higher-quality AI chapters, transcript polish, named speaker attribution, and AI-personalized Discovery, along with some Siri and CarPlay conveniences. Visit Apple's website to see which devices support Apple Intelligence.
CastKeeper has full CarPlay support - browse your Library, Archive, Collections, and Discover shelves right from the dash, with a Now Playing screen and a Home tab header that shows what's currently playing along with quick actions. You can even ask for a spoken Catch Me Up recap without touching your phone.
Yes. Ask Siri to play, pause, resume, skip, queue up an episode, archive the episode you're currently listening to, add a note, or give you a Catch Me Up recap - all completely hands-free.
CastKeeper stores your data locally on your device, and uses Apple's private CloudKit framework to sync your listening history, queue, episode locks, and SmartKeep rules seamlessly across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. No separate accounts or logins are required. Archived podcasts are stored securely in your chosen storage destination (iCloud Drive, external SSDs/drives, or your favorite S3-compatible cloud provider).
No, we do not collect any data. We have zero user analytics, zero advertising SDKs, and zero tracking cookies. Our hosts directory is hosted on a secure database and does not require any personal information to use. Updates to hosts are submitted by users and verified by our team or the podcast owner before being added to the directory.
CastKeeper Free supports archiving up to 10 episodes to iCloud Drive. With CastKeeper Unlimited ($4.99 one-time), you unlock unlimited archives across iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, AWS S3, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces, any Custom S3-compatible server, as well as connected physical external drives (USB-C SSDs, SD cards, and portable hard drives).
We are constantly evaluating new cloud storage providers for future updates. However, we consider many factors when evaluating new providers. If you have a cloud storage provider in mind that you think we should evaluate, please email us at [email protected].
CastKeeper never stores your data on our servers. Your data is stored in CloudKit, your iCloud Drive, your S3-compatible storage provider, or your local device. We are not responsible for lost data due to any failures of any third-party service used. It is always recommended that you keep backups of your data.
You can delete your data in CastKeeper, or directly from your iCloud Drive, S3-compatible storage provider, or local device. CastKeeper support cannot delete your data from any of these locations, including CloudKit.
CastKeeper is meant to be your personal podcast archive. If the app detects that your podcasts are stored in a shared or public folder, it may no longer allow you to archive podcasts to that folder. However, you are responsible for applying to all applicable laws and regulations regarding the distribution of podcasts. CastKeeper is not responsible for any copyright infringement or other legal issues that may arise from your use of the app.
AI uses Apple's CoreML framework, Apple Intelligence, and Siri AI in iOS 27 to provide advanced features like natural language search, Catch Me Up recaps, AI summaries, and smart chapters—all on-device or via Private Cloud Compute.
All transcription is done privately on-device using Apple's CoreML, Apple Intelligence, or WhisperKit.
CastKeeper is free to download, and on-device transcription, on-device AI chapters, and natural language search are free for everyone - no purchase required. Catch Me Up recaps, SmartKeep, unlimited Smart Collections, and Private Cloud Compute-quality AI (higher-fidelity chapters, transcript polish, named speaker attribution) unlock with a single one-time upgrade to CastKeeper Unlimited ($4.99 USD), with no monthly subscriptions ever.
Catch Me Up is a short, spoken summary of what happened in an episode before wherever you paused, so you can jump back in without rewinding. It's available right in the app, through Siri, and in CarPlay, and requires CastKeeper Unlimited.
SmartKeep automatically manages which episodes stay downloaded and archived per podcast, so you don't have to manually clean up storage yourself. SmartKeep requires CastKeeper Unlimited.
Yes - Natural Language Search lets you ask things like "that episode where they talked about..." instead of typing an exact title. It's free for everyone, no purchase required.
Yes - AI-detected sponsor and advertisement segments are marked right in the chapter list, so they're easy to spot and skip.
CastKeeper supports transcription translation in over 15 languages, and as Apple continues to add more to their models, we will too make them available in the app as soon as possible.
CastKeeper has Live Captions - real-time, on-screen captions of whatever is playing, with adjustable text size and styling. Catch Me Up also doubles as an audio-first way to keep up with an episode without needing to read anything.
Yes - set a timed sleep timer, or have it stop automatically at the end of the current chapter or episode. A Live Activity keeps you posted on the countdown from your Lock Screen.
Yes - optional silence trimming skips dead air automatically, and CastKeeper keeps a running total of how much listening time it's saved you.
No subscriptions ever. CastKeeper is free to download, and covers full playback, discovery, downloads, silence trimming, on-device AI chapters and summaries, and natural language search, plus up to 10 actively archived episodes to iCloud Drive. To remove the archive limit, unlock every cloud storage provider, and add Catch Me Up, SmartKeep, unlimited Smart Collections, and Private Cloud Compute-quality AI, you can upgrade to CastKeeper Unlimited for a one-time purchase of $4.99 USD. CastKeeper Unlimited supports Apple Family Sharing, so one single purchase covers your whole family group, and existing CastKeeper users are grandfathered into Unlimited automatically.
Beyond the optional $4.99 USD one-time purchase for CastKeeper Unlimited, there are no ongoing costs or subscription tiers. External cloud storage (e.g., AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2), if configured, is subject to the terms of service and storage pricing of your chosen provider.
You can contact us at [email protected] for any questions or issues you may have.
We welcome feature requests and submissions. Please submit them to [email protected]. We will review your request and consider it for implementation. Our mission is to provide the best possible experience possible for users.