Password-protected podcasts

Adding a password to your podcast lets you restrict access to your content. This is useful for podcasts that you don't wish to share with the public, but want to make easily accessible to a narrow audience.

Password protection is available to customers with the Growth Add-on.

Unlike private episodes through the Pinecast Tip Jar, private podcasts are completely hidden until a password is provided.

Enabling password protection

You can enable a password on your podcast by visiting the Settings > Protection tab of your podcast dashboard and providing a password.

Beware! Adding password protection may have unintended consequences:

Existing subscribers will no longer be able to access your content. They will need to unsubscribe from your feed and re-subscribe with a password. Some podcast apps may prompt for a password.
Your podcast website will be password protected. Your podcast website may no longer appear in search results.
You will not be able to submit your podcast to Spotify through Pinecast.
You may not be able to list your podcast on public directories like Apple Podcasts or Google Play.

Of course, it's important to remember that anyone that has already downloaded your episodes will continue to have the copy that they downloaded. Adding a password does not delete previously-downloaded content from your existing subscribers' devices.

Changing your password

At any time, you can revisit the Protection tab to change or remove your podcast password.

Beware!

Removing your podcast password will make your podcast available to the public.
Changing your password will have the same effect as setting a new password; all existing subscribers will no longer be able to access your content and will be forced to resubscribe (or provide the new password, if their app supports it).

Downgrading

If you cancel your Growth Add-on subscription or cancel your Pinecast subscription entirely, password protection is placed into a "hold" state. In this state, your podcast is completely inaccessible (including to previous subscribers) until you explicitly turn off password protection.