Setting up your personal local podcast server

This is a brief description of how to set up a local podcast server. It has what I believe to be a very specific use-case, so it’s not for everybody. While the iPhone is my daily device, I am not a fan of using iTunes to sync music to its Music app. Most of the music I listen to are DJ radio shows, hosted weekly, bimonthly, or monthly, and are typically 60-120 minutes long. Most have their own podcast that can be found on the iTunes Store, but some do not (though they do offer downloads of their sets).

One alternative option is to upload these to Google Play Music. Google allows I believe up to 50000 songs to be stored on their cloud, and it does not appear to factor in the size of the file or the duration. While this method does work, I’ve found that the Play Music app never remembers the play position once the app closes, nor have any of the other apps that I have tried, except for Apple’s first party apps. So I did some reading online and after an hour figured out how to set up a local server to store the RSS feed and music files, open it up in Podcast app, and subscribe/download to your device. Many thanks to Tech-Recipes for their initial guide.

1. Download AnalogX SimpleServer:WWW and install it. This lightweight program will set up a local http server for your device to access the podcast url/files. You will need to specify the location of the folder, and will need an empty file to set the directory. You can place your music in this directory or in a subfolder.
2. Visit this website to generate the RSS XML code. Your output code will be on the right pane. Fill in everything necessary. The Item Url will take the form of http://hostURL/yourfilename.mp3. Item Mp3 Length is the size in bytes. And Item Duration can be found from the file itself.
3. Copy and paste the above code into a blank text file and save it as rss.xml. Make sure there are no spaces to the left of the top two lines shown below. And there are no spaces or empty lines above.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">

4. Now open the Podcast app on your device. Go to My Podcasts, and tap on Search My Podcasts. Then, enter http://hostURL/rss.xml, then Search. You will be prompted to Subscribe. And then you can view the feed to download anything you want.

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