About chapters and potential beta testing
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wondering how the chapters work and is the app needs to be updated for this to work how will l know if it works settings is set to publish chapter titles
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Where chapters come from
Chapters are added by the podcast’s creator, either inside the episode’s audio file or through the podcast’s feed. When an episode has them, Pocket Casts shows them automatically. There’s no setting to turn on and no special app update needed, though it’s always a good idea to keep the app up to date.
How to tell if it’s working
In the iPhone or Android app, play an episode and open the full-screen player:
- If the episode has chapters, you’ll see arrows just below the artwork for skipping between them.
- Tap the Chapters tab to see the full list, then tap any chapter to jump to it.
If neither shows up, that episode doesn’t include chapters the app can read. Support varies a little by app: Android doesn’t read Apple’s M4A chapter format, and the web and desktop apps show chapters on fewer episodes than the phone apps. Our Chapters guide has the details.
If you’re a podcaster and your hosting service is set to publish chapter titles, Pocket Casts reads MP3 chapters (plus AAC chapters on iPhone) and chapters in the Podcast Index or Podlove formats, so they’ll appear once your host includes them in one of those ways.
As a Plus member, you may also have seen chapters Pocket Casts generated for episodes without any. That feature is turned off for everyone at the moment while we make changes to it, so only creator-provided chapters show right now.
You don’t need a beta to use chapters, but if you’d like to join one, our Beta Testing guide explains how.
If chapters still aren’t showing for an episode you expected them on, reply with the podcast name and your device, and we’ll take a look.
