🎧 The best new podcast app

Mar 16

Snipd is the best podcast app for saving and sharing excerpts from anything you’re listening to. It’s free and easy to use on iOS & Android.

Best features | Tap a button to mark a point of interest; share highlights with friends or export them to a notes app like Notion or Readwise.
Why use it? Save moments you want to remember from podcasts you’re learning from. Build a reference library of audio clips. Share with teammates.
Caveats | No desktop or Web app. Cluttered interface. Limited playlist functionality.
Alternatives | Castro is simpler, free & good. Overcast has richer features for voice-enhancement and speed adjustment. Neither has good highlighting.

Read on for how and why to use Snipd and a video demo.

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3 of the most useful Snipd features

Save ideas for later. Tap the app’s big “Create Snip” button to mark a highlight without interrupting the podcast you’re listening to. Or if your phone’s in a pocket, tap your headphones. Snipd will save a smart selection including the moment right before and after your tap.
Share podcast moments. It’s easy to email a highlight or post it to a social platform as an audiogram with audio and a visible transcript.
Find the most valuable sections of podcasts with transcripts & chapters. Skip right to the parts you're most interested in with the help of AI-generated chapters and full transcripts. If you’ve ever repeatedly hit the skip-forward button to jump through an episode, you’ll appreciate this. I love it.

Watch my 4-minute video demo to see how I use Snipd.

Import your podcast subscriptions. Bring in your list of podcast subscriptions from any other app so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Export highlights to Readwise, Notion or other note-taking services. Organize podcast excerpts alongside your reading highlights and notes.
Discover new gems. An AI-generated stream of snippets from shows you listen to lets you discover notable moments from episodes you’ve missed. You can also sample interesting moments from titles you don’t yet subscribe to. It’s a nice way to discover new podcasts.

Sending a short podcast clip rather than an episode link makes it more likely a colleague will listen. It’s easier to find time for a 2-minute excerpt than to sift through an hourlong show.
New AI-powered features are coming, along with a private community for sharing and discussing podcast clips.
Even as video thrives, audio-only podcasts will also last because they allow you to consume info while doing something else with your hands and eyes.
Smith’s favorite podcasts include Lex Fridman, the All-In Podcast, and How to Start a Startup. Listen to Smith’s favorite snip.

I Want to Know Josh Spector’s super-useful podcast for creators. [Clip]
The Rebooting Show Smart interviews with media innovators. [Clip]
Creator Debates Lively debates on tactics for making modern media. [Clip]
People vs Algorithms Intelligent discussions on the media ecosystem with
Troy Young
,
Brian Morrissey
and Alex Schleifer. [Clip]
Feel Better. Live More. Europe’s top health podcast. [Clip]
Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal Thoughtful interviews by a Dr-turned-YouTuber. [Clip]

The Snipd interface feels cluttered to me. It sometimes takes me several clicks to navigate through the app.
If you listen mostly to fiction, music or meditation podcasts, you probably don’t need Snipd.
If you don’t care about remembering or sharing highlights from podcasts, just about any podcast app will work for you.
Snipd’s playlist functions aren’t as robust as those in other popular podcast apps like Castro and Overcast. I can’t easily create multiple playlists or adjust settings so new episodes of my favorite podcasts will flow automatically to the top of my listening queue. Snipd has plans to address these issues.

Castro is free, simple and the best option if you don’t care about highlights. Here’s my rave about it. I’ve always liked its streamlined playlist. All I had to do was to line up what I wanted to listen to and let it flow.
Momento is an alternative podcast app that allows you to save highlights, but its features are limited and it’s slower than Snipd.

Airr was another promising app for saving podcast moments, but it hasn’t been updated in a year and seems to be heading toward retirement.
Overcast is free for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
- Voice Boost normalizes volume levels on podcasts so you can hear speakers clearly.
- Smart Speed shortens silences between words to reduce the time it takes to listen to an episode regardless of what speed you listen at.
- Multiple playlists. Save batches of shows separately. When on a long car trip with my daughters, my wife and I switch playlists to veer from kids science (But Why) and debate (Smash, Boom, Best) podcasts over to grown-up shows like This American Life, Hidden Brain or Planet Money.