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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?

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  • People answering are ignoring the itms:// part of your question and assuming you're referring to normal iTunes links. Those are two different types of links. See my answer for a direct response to your question.
    – Michael Khalili
    Jun 24, 2015 at 1:48

7 Answers 7

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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.

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  • 33
    Thanks for the hint. Is there a possibility without using iTunes?
    – guerda
    Dec 7, 2009 at 7:30
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    I have not found a way to get the feed URL without using iTunes (and assuming the site doesn't publish the feed URL anywhere). Often it's so time-consuming to search/guess at what the URL would be that it's easier to just open up iTunes and do it that way. I sympathize with the desire to bypass iTunes entirely and will watch this thread to see if anyone comes up with a way to do that.
    – shawnr
    Dec 11, 2009 at 21:01
  • Thanks for your research. I will post my information too, if I found sth new.
    – guerda
    Dec 16, 2009 at 10:16
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    Is Apple literally trying to break the web!?
    – HaveAGuess
    Mar 16, 2015 at 22:41
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    HaveAGuess... Apple is trying to BREAK EVERYTHING!
    – Papa De Beau
    Aug 26, 2015 at 21:51
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You can use the following "small tool" I created to do this:

Itunes podcast link extractor (Just enter an 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

Country code may be required outside the US, eg: &country=au

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    This helped me a lot. Found this page while searching for itunes podcast rss url, so this answer is still relevant.
    – ᴍᴇʜᴏᴠ
    Jul 2, 2015 at 12:30
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    Doesn't work anymore. ex: itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/how-to-program-with-java/…
    – DummyBeginner
    May 2, 2016 at 17:51
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    It worked for me (audio podcast). The one you posted Dummy looks like a video podcast (iTunes U), maybe you need a different format.
    – Michael Butler
    May 31, 2016 at 2:33
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    This trick worked for me just now.
    – thomasrutter
    Sep 5, 2018 at 3:37
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    It works for me in June 2021
    – desbest
    Jun 6, 2021 at 20:50
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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.

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  • This is really the best solution without installing and running iTunes.. more so now that I am on Ubuntu...
    – Antony
    Dec 30, 2014 at 14:36
  • This is a good one. Took me literally less than 1 minute to get the direct RSS feed link. Thanks so much!
    – ᴍᴇʜᴏᴠ
    Feb 3, 2015 at 14:56
  • The link seems dead now.
    – cic
    Apr 6, 2015 at 21:52
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    Also, http://picklemonkey.net/feedflipper-home/ will do the trick. Thanks, @senarvi!
    – George
    May 3, 2015 at 8:19
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    It's not obvious, but the old not-working link reported above was replaced with a working one in an edit.
    – ᴍᴇʜᴏᴠ
    Feb 11, 2017 at 22:16
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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.

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  • Doesn't work for me. Simply sends me back to the iTunes page from which I got the original ITMSS link. @Gino's solution, however, works fine. It gives me a URL I can put into my RSS feed reader and forget about.
    – George
    May 3, 2015 at 8:13
  • Great but @Gino is answering a question that wasn't asked. Gino is answering "How do I get the RSS link from a typical iTunes podcast link?" The original question is related to "ITMS://" links. My answer specifically addresses the original question. Gino addresses a different question related to RSS feeds and iTunes. It has nothing to do with ITMS links.
    – Michael Khalili
    Jun 24, 2015 at 1:45
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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.
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You can use the Podcast Lookup tool to get the RSS feed of any Apple Podcast show.

Apple Podcast RSS Feed

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    Thanks @amit-agarwal, this is the best tool I have seen out there!
    – jhbsk
    Sep 6, 2022 at 15:47
  • Thank you @jhbsk
    – Amit Agarwal
    Sep 7, 2022 at 17:33
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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.

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  • rawgit is being discontinued
    – clacke
    Jan 6, 2019 at 4:16
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    cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/djm/… should work as a replacement. By using the commit hash instead of master, it also reduces the set of people able to do injection from djm, github and jsdelivr (or in the original, rawgit) to just github and jsdelivr.
    – clacke
    Jan 6, 2019 at 4:22

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