iPX

iPX

A podcatcher for the whole household, running on your own server.

It checks your feeds, downloads new episodes, and gives everyone at home a list of their own to listen from in the browser, all sharing one copy of each file.

Browse the directory

  • 99% Invisible
  • Hackaday
  • Clarkesworld
  • Accidental Tech Podcast
  • Daring Fireball
  • Ologies
  • Oxide and Friends
  • xkcd
  • The Sporkful
  • Acquired
  • Construction Physics
  • Dwarkesh Podcast
Some of what people listen to and read on iPX servers today.

What it does

Everyone gets their own list

Each person signs in to their own feeds, with their own unread counts, pins and place in every episode. However many of you want an episode, there is one copy on disk.

The feed list: Directory, Currently Listening and All Subscriptions, then each show with its cover and how many of its episodes are unread.

It does the fetching

Feeds are checked on a schedule and new episodes download on their own, filtered by keyword, media type or explicit content. Old files are cleared to stay within the disk space you give it, never one somebody pinned.

99% Invisible's episodes in a table with each one's size and date, and the downloaded one's file beside it, ready to play, save, share or delete.

Pick up where you left off

The player keeps your place in every episode, on every device. Turn on DeadAir for a show and it plays without the long silences, leaving the pause you choose.

The player along the bottom of the page: the episode playing, back and forward, how far in it is, its speed and the volume.

On your phone

Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app, with the same lists and the same place in each episode as on your computer.

iPX on a phone: Ologies with Alie Ward and its latest episodes.

A shared directory

iPX servers can share the public shows their people follow. Browse the directory to find something new, and subscribe in one click from your own server.

The directory's most subscribed shows, each with its cover and how many people subscribe.
BitTorrent too
A show published as a torrent downloads like any other. iPX joins the swarm, seeds back until the ratio or time you set, and gives up on one that stalls. A slow swarm never holds up the rest.
Subscribe to a whole list
Give iPX the address of an OPML list and it keeps a folder in step with it, as whoever keeps the list adds and drops shows. Your own subscriptions import and export as OPML too.
Sign in your way
Each person signs in with a password, or Cloudflare Access or Authentik signs them in for you. An admin adds people and decides who else is one.
Blogs too
Any RSS or Atom feed works, so the blogs you read sit beside the shows you listen to, each with its own read and unread.

Since 2004

iPodderX was one of the first podcatchers, a Mac app by Ray Slakinski and August Trometer, from the year podcasts got their name. iPX is its engine rewritten in Rust for a server, with a page modelled on the original window: the feed list down the side, the episodes in a table, the player along the bottom.