acast_dl.py

The purpose of this script is to easily download podcast episodes from Acast for offline listening.

It also works for other podcast platforms as long as you can get a RSS feed URL (e.g. Ausha, Radio France, etc.).

Limitations

• this script is currently a wip and has been tested with only a very little set of podcast feeds
• this script only support .mp3 files

AI usage

Please note that parts of this script has been written using OpenAI ChatGPT (GPT-4o + GPT-5) as a teammate.

This project is an excuse to see how good AI is at helping to write small tools (I always have lots of ideas but don't have time to implement them).

Dependencies

I try to keep the number of depencies as low as possible.

Currently acast_dl relies on four :

• feedparser for retrieving and parsing the RSS XML feed
• mutagen for updating ID3 MP3 tags
• tqdm to show a progress bar when downloading the files
• filetype to guess the mime type of cover images

You can either install them with your favorite package manager or install uv and launch acast_dl.py right away.

It makes use of PEP-723 that allows to add metadata :

#!/usr/bin/env -S uv run --script
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.8"
# dependencies = [
#     "feedparser",
#     "mutagen",
#     "tqdm",
#     "filetype"
# ]
# ///

When launched the first time you'll see uv downloading and installing the dependencies :

Installed 5 packages in 32ms
 ~ feedparser==6.0.11
 ~ filetype==1.2.0
 ~ mutagen==1.47.0
 ~ sgmllib3k==1.0.0
 ~ tqdm==4.67.1

I got the inspiration to use uv thanks to this blog post : Fun with uv and PEP 723 (related hn post).

Usage

TODO

TODO

• Update this README.md file
  • "Usage" chapter
• add arguments
  • --overwrite : overwrite any already downloaded podcast file
  • --ignore-rss-cache : ignore ETag and Last-Modified headers
  • --max-download : download only the latest / most recent X podcast episodes
  • --cover-as-jpeg : convert all cover images to JPEG
  • --prefix : prefix MP3 filenames with ??? (pubDate as YYYY-MM-DD ? season/episode as SxEy (if available) ?)

Similar projects

Here's a non-exhaustive list, in non-specific order, of similar projects to acast_dl :

• acast-rss-downloader
• gocast

Legal Notice

This project is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Acast in any way. Acast is a registered trademark of its respective owner. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.

All podcasts, audio files, images, descriptions, and related metadata retrieved using this tool remain the sole property of their respective creators and copyright holders. This tool is intended for personal, non-commercial use only.

You are responsible for ensuring that your use of any downloaded content complies with applicable copyright laws and the terms of service of the source platform.

License

The source code of this project is released under the MIT License.

This license applies only to the project’s code and does not extend to any media downloaded or processed with this tool.