How to migrate a podcast from Anchor to Podbean
I’ve recently migrated from Anchor to Podbean for my podcast, Never Mind The Bar Charts. Here are some tips that I’ve learnt along the way.
- Create your new Podbean account.
- As an aside, if you are going to use your own domain name, as I do with www.NeverMindTheBarCharts.com, then configure that in Podbean early on. That way, you can avoid having to double-back on other configuration and content later on. From your podcast dashboard, go to Settings and then Own domain to do this.
- Get the feed (RSS) address for your Anchor podcast. If you don’t already know it, login to Anchor, and from the Dashboard, click View public site. Under Where to listen on your site is a set of icons for different platforms. The last one, an orange square with curved white lines, is for your feed. Click on it and this will copy your feed address.
- Go back to Podbean and from your podcast dashboard, go to Settings and then Switch to Podbean. Enter the feed address here and, if you wish – which you probably will, tick the box to import your episodes.
- Go to Anchor and Settings, Distribution. Under Redirect URL enter the new Podbean feed address (which you will have been given in the previous step).
- That’s it! At least according to Podbean’s instructions, it is. Except that I found some wrinkles. So don’t stop here… Most obviously, don’t forget to check and updates links to your podcast. If you’ve got direct links, e.g. in a Twitter profile, to the old Anchor web address they will need updating.
- The episode numbers were messed up when I imported my podcast. Within each season, the numbers were reversed with the last episode being number one, the penultimate number two, and so on. So once the import is done, from the podcast dashboard go to Publish and Episodes. You can use the update button (the one with the pencil icon) to check the numbering of each episode. After you click this button, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on More Episode Settings to find the numbering.
- One other thing that was (sort of) messed up is the number of podcast subscribers reported in some podcast apps. That’s because once you’ve done the switch you have two feed addresses, even though they both end up in the same place. One is your old Anchor one, now redirect to Podbean, and the other is the new direct Podbean one. Some podcast subscriber stats may, therefore, under-report how many subscribers you have as they don’t aggregate the total across the two feeds. Podbean’s statistics, however, combine everything into one set of numbers.
If you make a similar move, I hope it goes well – and happy podcasting!
Thanks! I just moved from Anchor to Podbean today–but saw that Anchor was still keeping a tally of my listens. And there were about 30 listens for Anchor that did not show up on Podbean. Any idea why? I know you aren’t a tech site but figured I’d ask 🙂
I’ve found a small trickle of listens coming via Anchor long after switching from it. I think it’s because the episodes are still up on the Anchor site and so people following old links in tweets etc. still occasionally stumble across the Anchor version of episodes.
Did you have to redistribute your show through Podbean after switching from Anchor? I’m worried that after I delete my anchor account my show will be removed from all of the streaming platforms.
When you’re up and running on Podbean, you can get Anchor to automatically redirect everyone who uses your feed to the new Podbean address. Over time, people’s subscriptions in podcast apps etc. will then update behind the scenes to the new Podbean feed. The streaming platforms will do the same and when I’ve done this, the old episodes continued to show – they just then redirected behind the scenes to Podbean. (I had also loaded up all my old episodes on Podbean.)
Oh, interesting! Is there something special I need fr anchor to do the redirect, or will it do it automatically? I did exactly what you wrote in this article and did the thing where I submitted my podbean RSS to anchor.
Step #5 in the blog post will cover that (setting the redirect on Anchor). Good luck!
I opened an Anchor account but didn’t end up using it. Instead I opened a Podbean account and uploaded my intro and all episodes there. I’ve been having a “digital cleanup” and wanted to close my unused Anchor account however they’re telling me that my podcast will be deleted on Spotify etc. I have clearly told them (& they know) that I’ve never used their platform. This is what they’ve said:
“If your podcast was distributed to external platforms (like Apple Podcasts and Spotify), it can take up to 10 business days for it to be fully removed from those platforms. For you may rest easy and let us wait for the deletion to take effect to the other platform.”
I’m so confused that they’re telling me this after I told them I’m not using their platform. Am I in trouble of having my podcast being deleted if all my info is and has always been on Podbean? Thanks so much.
It sounds like you should be ok from that description, but it’s not 100% clear as if at some point you pointed Anchor at Spotify, it might be that Anchor will delete items from Spotify even if you uploaded them direct. Best to go back to their support and ask again, I think.