Guide
Listening in the car
Your stories, in the podcast app you already use. One link, pasted once, and every new story turns up on its own. It plays through CarPlay and Android Auto, and downloads for the places with no signal.
What a private podcast is
It is a link. Paste it into a podcast app and your child's stories appear there as episodes, the same way any show does. There is no new app to learn, and nothing to move across by hand.
The link is yours alone and it is not listed anywhere. It is not in our sitemap, it is not submitted to Apple or to any podcast directory, and it carries the tag that keeps podcast apps from putting it in their public search.
On an iPhone
- Open Apple Podcasts.
- Tap Library at the bottom.
- Tap the three dots at the top right.
- Tap Follow a Show by URL.
- Paste the link and tap Follow.
Apple's own route is a little temperamental, and sometimes a link needs a second attempt. If it will not take at all, Pocket Casts is the reliable one: paste the link straight into its search bar.
On an Android phone
Android has no podcast app built in, so pick one. Pocket Casts and AntennaPod both take a link, and both work with Android Auto.
- Open Pocket Casts.
- Tap Discover, then the search bar.
- Paste the link and tap Search.
- Tap Subscribe.
On a Yoto
Podcast cards stream, so they need a signal. In a car with no signal a podcast card will not play. To take stories somewhere with no signal, push them to a card from your library instead, which downloads them onto the card.
- Open yotoplay.com/create in any browser.
- Choose Podcasts, then Add Podcast.
- Paste the link, then choose Grab podcast details.
- Link it to a Make Your Own card.
Yoto's servers fetch the link rather than your player, so Yoto sees your story titles. That is a choice you are making, and you can undo it by resetting the link.
Can I use Spotify?
No, and not because we have not got round to it. Spotify has no way to add a podcast by link, so there is nowhere in the app to paste this. Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Overcast all take a link, and all three play through CarPlay and Android Auto.
Who can listen
Anyone with the link can listen. That is what makes it work without a password in an app that has no way to ask for one. The link is long and random, so nobody will guess it, and it is not published anywhere.
Unlisted is not the same as private. If you send the link to somebody, or it ends up in a screenshot, they can listen too. You can reset it whenever you like: the old link stops working straight away, and you add the new one wherever you used the old one.
You choose how your child is named in episode titles. By default they are named as the story names them. You can use a different name instead, or no names at all, which is the only option that guarantees no name appears.
If something is not right
Nothing turned up. A brand-new podcast has one welcome episode in it, so if you see nothing at all the link has not been added properly. Try pasting it again.
It says the show could not be found. Check the whole link came across, including the part after the last slash.
The titles are wrong. Changing the naming affects new episodes. Anything your podcast app already downloaded keeps the title it had.