Swift Podcast Index Metadata

A dependency-free Swift package for searching and discovering podcasts through the Podcast Index API. This is the discovery front-door RSS can't provide: find shows and episodes by topic, list what's trending, and resolve a feed by URL, iTunes ID, or Podcast Index ID — then hand the feed URL to your feed parser to pull episodes.

Podcast Index is free, but every request is signed with an API key + secret. Get one at api.podcastindex.org.

Features

• 🔎 Search — find shows by term or title; find episodes mentioning a person
• 🔥 Trending & recent — trending shows and the newest episodes across the index
• 🔗 Resolve — look up a podcast by feed URL, feed ID, or iTunes collection ID
• 🎧 Episodes — list episodes for any show (with duration, enclosure URL, artwork)
• 🔐 Signed requests — handles the SHA-1 auth scheme for you (via CryptoKit, no dependencies)
• 📦 Sendable & Codable models

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+ / iOS 16.0+ / tvOS 16.0+ / watchOS 9.0+
• Swift 6.0+

Installation

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/arraypress/swift-podcastindex-metadata.git", from: "1.0.0")
]

Usage

import PodcastIndexMetadata

let config = PodcastIndexMetadata.Configuration(apiKey: "…", apiSecret: "…")
// …or set PODCAST_INDEX_KEY / PODCAST_INDEX_SECRET and use `.default`.

// Find shows by topic
let shows = try await PodcastIndexMetadata.search("artificial intelligence", configuration: config)
for show in shows {
    print(show.title, "—", show.episodeCount ?? 0, "episodes")
    print(show.url)   // RSS feed URL
}

// Latest episodes for a show
let episodes = try await PodcastIndexMetadata.episodes(feedID: shows[0].id, configuration: config)
print(episodes.first?.title ?? "", episodes.first?.formattedDuration ?? "")

// Trending shows / recent episodes across the whole index
let trending = try await PodcastIndexMetadata.trending(configuration: config)
let recent   = try await PodcastIndexMetadata.recentEpisodes(configuration: config)

// Resolve a known feed
let show = try await PodcastIndexMetadata.podcast(itunesID: 1510472996, configuration: config)

Pairs with

• swift-podcast-metadata — resolve Apple Podcasts / Spotify URLs to a show
• swift-feed-kit — parse a resolved feed URL into full episode data

Discover here → resolve → parse. Same house, three doors.

Models

Type	Description
PodcastFeed	id, title, url, website, description, author, ownerName, imageURL, language, categories, episodeCount, itunesID, isExplicit, lastUpdated
PodcastEpisode	id, title, link, description, guid, datePublished, enclosureURL/Type/Length, durationInSeconds (+ formattedDuration), episode, season, episodeType, imageURL, feedID, feedTitle
Configuration	apiKey, apiSecret, userAgent; .default reads the environment
PodcastIndexMetadataError	Typed errors with errorDescription

License

MIT License — see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Created by David Sherlock (ArrayPress) in 2026.