Get RSS feed from iTunes podcast links

Question

I'm using Gnome's Rhythmbox to listen to Podcasts. Some Podcasts don't provide an rss feed for downloading the episodes but only a itms:// link for iTunes.

Now I'd like to download them via a "normal" RSS reader/podfetcher.
How can I accomplish this?

Answer 1

You should first subscribe to the Podcast using iTunes, then open your iTunes library.

If you go to your Podcasts listing in your iTunes library, you will see a list of the Podcasts you subscribe to. Right-click on the Podcast you want to copy the URL of and select "Copy Podcast URL". This will copy the URL to the RSS feed of the Podcast into your clipboard. You can then paste that link into whatever other application you are using.

Answer 2

You can use the following "small tool" I created to do this :

Itunes podcast link extractor (Just enter a itunes podcast URL in the input field)

How it works if you prefer to do it manually :

Extract the Id from the link with a regex or somethin else

EX: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/state-trance-official-podcast/id260190086

load this link with the ID https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=260190086&entity=podcast

Get the "feedUrl" from this json file.

The &entity=podcast is not necessary but it may help

Answer 3

This works also: http://picklemonkey.net/feedflipper-home/ You can even see the original iTunes feed when you open the generated feed in your browser.

Answer 4

I believe all the existing answers are mistaken. The itms protocol is used when a podcast is not listed on iTunes at all. It's used as a shortcut to subscribe a regular RSS feed that isn't on iTunes. It's a way to allow someone to subscribe to iTunes without having the feed listed in the directory.

It works simply by replacing the http:// protocol prefix of an RSS feed URL with itms:// So, if you'd like to get the regular RSS feed of a show that's linking to itms, just replace the itms with http.

Here's an example: A show I help produce is called Keith and The Girl. Their RSS feed is http://www.keithandthegirl.com/rss Their iTunes link listing is https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/keith-girl-comedy-talk-show/id253167631?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

However, you can subscribe to the RSS feed directly by replacing the http in the RSS feed url with ITMS like so itms://www.keithandthegirl.com/rss (SE won't let me make that link clickable but you get the idea)

So, now you see that ITMS and HTTP are interchangeable. Whenever you encounter an ITMS link, just replace it with HTTP.

Answer 5

iTunes Podcast Feed Extractor is an online tool I've created for reliably extracting an RSS url from an iTunes podcast link (so any podcast/rss app can be used). https://votable.net/tools/itunes.php

Instructions

• Copy and paste the relevant URL into the input field on the page. (The URL protocol doesn't matter e.g. "https", "itms," etc.)
• Click the submit button
• The extracted RSS URL should appear in below the form (along with the title and a thumbnail). If the feed could not be extracted, you will see an error message in the same area.
• Now you can use the real RSS URL in your desired podcast/RSS app.

Answer 6

While searching for a way to do this, I found Find out the RSS feed for an iTunes podcast. The guy created a bookmarklet to reveal the true RSS podcast URL/content feed, when you are on an iTunes podcast page.

javascript:(function(){var%20newScript=document.createElement('script');newScript.src='https://cdn.rawgit.com/djm/uncover-itunes-rss-bookmarklet/master/bookmarklet.js';document.body.appendChild(newScript);})();

It should be noted that the bookmarklet redirects to https://cdn.rawgit.com/djm/uncover-itunes-rss-bookmarklet/master/bookmarklet.js. It looks innocuous enough but the script could be changed at any time, including by a malicious hacker, so be forewarned.

He did publish it on GitHub––djm/uncover-itunes-rss-bookmarklet: Javascript bookmarklet to reveal actual RSS URL on a iTunes podcast page.

It works. e.g., when on https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/burnt-toast/id969524107?mt=2, the bookmarklet gave me http://feeds.feedburner.com/food52burnttoast. This opened perfectly in my feed reader.