Frequently asked questions

PodBright is a personal tool that converts emails, newsletters, PDFs, and web articles into podcast episodes. You get a private RSS feed that works with any podcast app — Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast, AntennaPod, and more.

Sign up for a free account. You'll instantly get a private email address and an RSS feed URL. Add the RSS feed to your podcast app once, then start forwarding content to your email address. New episodes appear automatically.

Yes — PodBright is free to try. Free accounts include up to 10 episodes per month.

No installation required to get started. Just sign up, add your RSS feed to your podcast app, and forward emails. The optional Chrome extension lets you send web articles with one click — available from your dashboard after signing up.

Three types: (1) Emails and newsletters — forward any email to your PodBright address. (2) PDFs — attach any PDF to an email and send it to your address. (3) Web articles — use the Chrome extension to send any web page with one click.

In Gmail, go to Settings → Filters → Create a new filter. Set the From field to your newsletter senders, click 'Create filter', check 'Forward it to', and enter your PodBright address. Do this once and every matching email forwards automatically forever.

Yes. Attach a PDF to any email and send it to your PodBright address. Research papers, industry reports, documentation, and meeting notes all work well. Maximum content size is 120,000 characters.

Yes, via the Chrome extension. Install it from your dashboard, click it on any web page, and the article is sent to your podcast feed in the background.

Any app that supports adding a podcast by RSS URL. This includes Apple Podcasts (iOS), Pocket Casts (iOS & Android), Overcast (iOS), AntennaPod (Android), Castro (iOS), and most other podcast apps.

Yes. Use Pocket Casts or AntennaPod on Android — both support adding a podcast by RSS URL. Pocket Casts is the most popular cross-platform option.

No. Spotify does not support private RSS feeds. Your PodBright feed is private and token-protected by design — it works with podcast apps that support private RSS, not Spotify.

Open Apple Podcasts → go to the Library tab → tap the search icon → choose 'Add a Podcast by URL' → paste your PodBright RSS feed URL. Do this once and new episodes appear automatically.

No. PodBright uses AI to rewrite your content for listening before converting it to audio. It removes formatting noise, restructures sentences for natural speech, and optionally summarizes long content. The result sounds like a real podcast, not a robot reading a webpage.

In Summary mode, AI condenses your content into a shorter episode — extracting the key points and removing filler. You can also set a target length: 3, 5, or 10 minutes. Verbatim mode reads the full content word-for-word.

It controls the language complexity of the audio. Simple mode uses plain English with short sentences — good for background listening. Standard preserves the original tone. Technical mode keeps domain terminology and goes deeper on concepts.

For longer content, PodBright's AI automatically detects section breaks and creates named chapter markers with timestamps. These appear on your episode cards so you can see the structure at a glance.

PodBright offers six neural voices: Dan (warm, conversational male), Scarlett (clear, engaging female), Will (authoritative male), Liv (bright, friendly female), Amy (calm, professional female), and Glinda (expressive female). You can change your default voice any time in Settings — all future episodes use the new voice.

Yes. In Settings, choose Full (reads everything), 10 min, 5 min, or 3 min. When a target length is set, AI extracts the most important content and trims the rest to fit. Useful for long newsletters or dense reports when you only have a short commute.

Before synthesizing audio, PodBright's AI removes email headers, tracking pixels, ad copy, and newsletter footers. It then restructures sentences that read naturally on a screen but sound awkward spoken aloud — collapsing bullet lists into prose, expanding abbreviations, and smoothing transitions. The goal is audio that sounds edited, not extracted.

Yes — your voice, mode, length, and difficulty settings are account-wide defaults. Every new episode uses whatever settings you have at the time it's processed. You can update your settings any time in the Settings page and the change applies to all future episodes.

No. Your RSS feed URL contains a private token — only you have it. Nothing is publicly listed or discoverable. Do not share your feed URL if your episodes contain private content.

Source text is discarded immediately after audio is generated. We retain the episode title, a short AI-generated summary, and the audio file. We do not store the full text of your emails long-term.

No. Your submitted content is processed to generate your episode and then discarded. It is not used to train any AI models.

Yes. Delete individual episodes from your dashboard at any time. To delete your account and all data, email hello@podbright.ai.