DoggCatcher Podcast Player

- June 10, 2016

Everyone

News & Magazines

( 10,164)

DoggCatcher Podcast Player- screenshot thumbnail

Description

Manage your podcasts and news feeds with the first Android Podcatcher.

Testimonials
-Lifehacker finds DoggCatcher to be "The Best Podcast Manager for Android"
-Android Central's Editors' Choice podcatcher of the year
-Android Central's Readers' Choice runner up podcatcher of the year

Highlights
-New material redesign
-ChromeCast and Android Auto support
-Easy to subscribe new podcasts
-Light/Dark theme
-Auto download and cleanup of media files
-Offline playback of audio and video podcasts
-Customizable audio playlists
-Supports devices of all sizes
-Highly configurable
-Build in variable speed playback
-Home screen widget for easy access to playback controls
-Podcast categorization

Automation
-Automatically updates podcasts on your schedule
-Automatically download new media
-Automatically deletes media

Add podcasts by
-Browsing Top 100 DoggCatcher podcasts
-Personalized recommendations
-Searching podcast and news directories
-Importing from OPML

Integrated Audio/Video Player
-Plays downloaded audio/video
-Streams audio over network (wifi/cell)
-Remembers play position of media file
-Plays video formats supported by Android - http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html

Playlists
-Audio playlist for continuous playback of new media
-Video/News playlists for easy navigation of new media

Community and support
-Frequently updated - http://mantis.doggcatcher.com/changelog_page.php
-Very active user community in forums - http://www.doggcatcher.com/forum
-Support via forums and email

Other
-Battery/data plan friendly - can limit downloads based on network/power connections
-Media download queue can be viewed and managed
-Bluetooth support (A2DP/AVRCP)
-Supports authenticated feeds (username/password)

For any questions about application permissions, please see http://www.doggcatcher.com/permissions

Community and support at doggcatcher.com

Reviews

4.5

10,164 total

5 6,783

4 2,180

3 564

2 286

1 351

Emorej Salif

My go-to podcast app, easy manual feed export or backup/restore, auto cloud sync of feeds and feed play counts (read the faqs). I use it on my tablet, and two phones. I have a device at my bedside as a alarm clock, sleep time podcast player, while my cell phone is charging are being used for other things. Also makes staying current even when you have to change phones.

Brian Burton

Great before the Marshmallow update. .. Marshmallow update killed this app for me. Ive been using the paid version for about two years now and it was one of my favorite apps, but with the update it has lost the ability (@ least on my Samsung Galaxy s5) to download to the sd card. That has made the app pretty much useless for me for any serious usage. Regrettably if the issue isn't resolved soon I'll be uninstalling in the next few days...

bill pemberton

not as flexible as it could be why does it need phone support on a device with no sim card? why does it aggressively grab audio control on bluetooth and force itself on the user when they are trying to do something else with audio? would be nice to have greater sort capability in feeds. no idea why it never played an entire feed but only one episode from a feed before moving to another feed. seems a bit touchy on rescanning for new podcasts for feeds.

Alastair Townsend

Lately, the app has lost functionality. Downloads only occur when the app is opened. Episodes disappear or seem to be out of correct order. Finished episodes are downloaded again. This used to be a great app, which I have used daily for over seven years. If the developer can fix these bugs, I will revise my rating. One thing that has always been missing though is playlists!

Justinn Diebold

Too many problems. Not functional app anymore I have used this app for 4 years. I loved it. Lately episodes will not download automatically. They show up as new episodes but when I press they are not downloaded yet. I have to manually download each one. This is annoying and if I am on data I cannot download many large files at once. It will use up too much of my monthly data. So I cannot even listen to podcasts if I am away from wifi. I did not receive any help when I emailed. I have no choice but to ditch this app and buy different one.

David Back

Been using Doggcatcher for years,because in the early days it was the ONLY podcast app which was configurable, would download on a schedule. But today it represents the the UX problem of geekdom:it's unintuitive and insanely convoluted.After nearly 10 years, I'm still not sure how to create, manage, and use playlists. Seriously, hire some 12 year olds.

User reviews

Emorej Salif July 12, 2017

Brian Burton July 11, 2016

bill pemberton September 25, 2016

Alastair Townsend April 16, 2017

Justinn Diebold August 5, 2016

David Back May 16, 2017

John W. Pine October 9, 2016

Not right hand friendly. But good Great app but when you are in the list of episodes to listen to, you cannot easily use your right thumb to select one to play. When you select one you actually hit a menu button instead of play. You have to reach far too the center of the screen.

Kelli Blount April 11, 2017

I love everything about this app except how it behaves when I open other apps like Pokemon Go. I wish it would keep the play/pause dialog in the notification dropdown, instead of reverting to "keep paused" or "Doggcatcher is busy," when updating. Just let me play the paused show without reopening! Please fix and I will love you forever.

A Google User June 6, 2017

This is indeed the most full featured all around podcatcher, and its very versatile, though because it has many customizable features, there is a small learning curve. Most of the complaints I see in these reviews, are actually adjustable in the settings. Developers, please consider these future improvements: 1. Using the web to sync across all devices, 2. Which would also provide a web based backup of the custom config, subscription list, current play states, etc., instead of the local backup. 3. A chrome version or similiar for listening from a PC. To fund the fact that you would have ongoing costs with web based sync/backup, I would be willing to pay another couple of bucks for periodic major upgrades.

Stephen Ford September 27, 2016

A good podcast player Does all you want. Good search and recommendation functions. Plays at increased speed. Exports your feeds though that is a little clunky. Only gripe is you can only limit downloads by how much spare space on SD which means you need to keep adjusting the limit. Just setting a max size for downloaded podcasts would work better.

Don Garrett May 28, 2017

What a great app, except for the latest update. It now crashes several times per day. Hope they fix it soon. It is now 5/30/2015. Fix the problem and I will upgrade my review to 5 stars. Update 7/12/2015: Had to uninstall and reinstall. It was a hassle but now it works as before.

DoggCatcher May 30, 2015

Please send use the 'report problem' in the navigation drawer and we'll check it out. Thanks for the feedback.

October 22, 2016

Something is changing about this app.. Multiple feed connection errors, sub-par feed search, discovery and recommendation system. I'll ask again. Can't you connect your search to iTunes system? Check out podcastaddict & figure out how they've implemented their search system. In finishing, kindly try to focus less on cosmetic designs, & Make the user interface simpler and more intuitive. In addition, find out how you could sell services through the app instead of focusing on payments. Guys, u need fresh ideas. Send me a private

Tony Andrys July 5, 2017

A brilliant podcasting app that I've used for years. No one does it better in the Android world. At $2.99, the paid version is a steal. The author could get away with charging 5 times more and it would still be worth every penny. If you're looking for a reliable podcatcher, look no further than DoggCatcher.

A Google User September 26, 2016

Really gone downhill I've been using this app daily for years and I used to love it but for the last several months I've just been having more and more problems. May podcasts skip randomly to the next without finishing the previous one. The resume function is almost completely broken now. Just today (and this happens way to often) I resumed a 1hr 30 min podcast at the 1 hr mark but the podcast started over fresh. The timeline was reading 52 Mins but was wrong. So I manually moved the timeline but it was still wrong

Mikey D September 12, 2016

Great application. Works pretty well and has some good features that others don't have. Organization is good. The ONE thing that makes me irritated, is when I had a Video that was playing via external app, I paused, it disappeared from from push notification tray, and when I opened up Doggcatcher, it just started playing the video without headphones (which is embarassing at work). I don't get why this app does that.

Mary Lohnes June 19, 2017

Sound level on the recordings is ridiculously low. Maybe it is my new phone One3+ but I don't have to turn the volume all the way up on my other apps with sound, music etc. Otherwise still like DC

A B July 11, 2017

Some idiot decided that the default sort and download order should be newest first. You know, because most people love to listen to the last episode first. Not only that, but they make it Incredibly difficult to override the default.

Ron Momtahan October 27, 2016

Obnoxious & Stupid in more Than One Level I think some years ago I bought this app because some reviewer had praised it. Despite not liking an app with a name like this on my phone, I bought it. Since then I've used it only when I had to, but overall very little. Incredibly frustrating due to bad interface. Uninstalling now, even if I had paid $100 for it!

J. Andres Hannah-Suarez February 5, 2017

My main complaint is that the player skips and eventually crashes my phone. Not exaggerating, if I use the internal player my phone will crash about 50% of the time. And when it's not crashing the player is skipping. This is a clear problem.

Tim Shank July 30, 2016

Broken in recent android versions DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY. Since kit-kat, saving to external sd is impossible. A quick Google search reveals many reports-- and the scapegoating that Doggcatcher support clearly defaults to.

A Google User October 1, 2016

Using for years but some serious annoyances. 1)This pull down to refresh is absurd. Im constantly refreshing my feeds when just trying to scroll through them. Get rid of it, it's unnecessary. 2)search feature is pretty much useless, getting rid of the google search option was a big mistake. 3)the interface has gotten annoying af. Tapping a feed no longer does what it used to do, so you no longer know whether it will dl, play or what. Really if something aint broke dont fix it. Leave the interface alone it's complicated enough wo random changes.

Mauricio Paredes April 19, 2017

This app used to be good, but with a new update, it looks just like Google Play but works horrendously. Often crashes and features are lacking. It also used to be free, but I paid for it; $4. Don't waste your time and money.

Alexander Kozhekin June 3, 2017

Has very annoying issue when feed got substituted once in a month approximately by a wrong/different feed and downloads some completely different podcasts. After few days it reverts back to a correct one and downloads all episodes from the beginning. By suggestion of the developer database got corrupted, so reinstalled app - but got same behaviour again.

Brandon High September 2, 2016

At some point recently the app stopped working with Bluetooth media controls. This makes it impossible to skip forward or backwards in podcasts without using the buttons on the phone. I have a Nexus 6P with Android N. The problem is present in both my cars and with 3 different bluetooth headsets.

Chris Garrett May 11, 2017

Works great for downloading podcast if you know what your looking for. No way to browse for things like Audio Dramas, but my biggest issue is that I can't rate the podcast to help others fine them!

Matthew Royal July 28, 2016

Updates broke it Lots of stuff stopped working, including speed of playback, and no material features were added. It's unusable now, so I'm uninstalling and trying other apps.

Frankie Smith December 30, 2016

Was ok, but annoying issues lingered The app is ok. Bought it a while ago when competition was weaker. Other apps have better usability, and less minor niggles.

William Beegle September 4, 2016

Great playlist customization This is the only app I've found that allows me to customize the downloads and playlists as much as I'd like. Synchronization across devices needs work, and Chromecast support is a bit uneven, but no complaints otherwise.

Fisty Fisterson September 19, 2016

Best podcast app for android I have tried 90% of the ones out there. I love it. Import, export, keep it on your dropbox, have it on all devices. The search pulls up what I look for. The suggestions are crap, but the rest of the features are exactly what you need.

Richard Klein June 20, 2017

I think the UI could be better, but I'm used to it and it works well for me. There is a problem with one podcast feed, though. It keeps downloading old episodes again and again. I think this is a problem with how the feed is set up, not a problem with Doggcatcher. 2017 update: My Motorola Droid Turbo has been mysteriously rebooting itself for months. I finally narrowed it down to doggcatcher; it reboots when I play podcasts on doggcatcher, just not every time. I switched to a different podcast client a week ago and my phone has been stable since then, so I'm uninstalling doggcatcher. I liked doggcatcher a lot, and paid for it, but this is a fatal flaw. I sent the developers feedback, but they couldn't find anything useful in my logs.

Thomas Eady January 7, 2017

Used to be good Used to work well, now mostly gives errors, has jumpy playback, doesn't order feeds properly and fills my notifications with Java errors

Aaron Reichow June 26, 2016

Longtime user, new audio issues I've been using this app since 2010. No other podcatcher that I've tried hits the sweet spot of features and minimal hassle, paid or free. Unfortunately, the most recent version is riddled with audio issues. Whether over Bluetooth headphones or the phone speaker, there is a static click a few times a second. Totally makes DoggCatcher useless until this is solved. Other phone audio is fine, no recent firmware updates. I've never had the issue before, hoping it gets fixed quickly! Will make my review 5 stars.

David Benston June 12, 2016

Mediocre and overpriced Bought this for $7 six years ago and liked it well enough at the time, though search and subscribe controls were clunky and counter intuitive. I gradually moved on to check out other apps and used Beyond Pod for a long time. Just came back to this and found nothing has changed. Can't even change the storage location. An OK app six years ago equates to a very poor one today. If it was free I'd give it one more star. No one should spend money on this when better alternatives exist for free.

Michael W July 10, 2017

Mostly good. Just frustrated that it keeps moving all the audio files to my device. Even if I go through the effort to delete from the device and change the file storage location to the SD card, every couple of months, the files go back to the device (in my case my Samsung Note 4 internal memory). I suspect that this is happening when DoggCatcher updates, but it is very annoying. I am running out of space on my device and podcast files take up a lot of space. Stop moving the storage back to my device!

Yoav Romach July 8, 2017

It's very feature rich, which is what I use it for. However, support is a bit lacking, and there are several issues/bugs that are not being fixed. For example, bluetooth buttons are not working properly for OxygenOS (Marshmallow).

A Google User July 22, 2017

Used to be my go to app for podcasts. For last few months over a few different phones it has become more and more unusable. Streaming podcasts results in constant dropouts or app deciding that I actually want to listen to another podcast entirely. Not wireless connection etc at fault as podcasts stream perfectly well on other apps. Going to stop using as I dread listening to podcasts on this now. Shame.

Jim NYVET December 4, 2016

Great player. Horrible automated customer service. This HAD great, quick customer service. Now the customer service is an automated email response followed by...NO ANSWER AT ALL. Well, to be fair, it has only been a week after all.......

Arc Mael July 3, 2016

Poor file management The app is filled with bugs, sometimes will not delete past podcasts, and it is a resource hog. Avoid. -Update: keeps poorly managing resources.

Jeremy Scoville January 26, 2017

There is no other app I use more on my phone that DoggCatcher. And I arrived at DC after trying nine other apps -- some for several months. This is the best app for podcasts I have ever used. It is intuitive and clean, able to reorganize easily on the fly and has always worked with any bluetooth device I connect to my phone. This is an amazing app.

Anthony Forcellini February 16, 2017

Rooted GS4. 4.4.2. Used to love this app, still uses it every day. Randomly stops playing and screen goes dark.... PIA. How do I install an older version?