Frequently asked questions

PodBright is a personal tool that converts emails, newsletters, web articles, and supported PDFs into podcast episodes. You get a private RSS feed that works with podcast apps that support adding a feed by URL, including 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 5 successfully processed episodes per month. Refer a friend and when they create their first episode, you earn 3 bonus episodes — up to 9 bonus episodes per month. Failed submissions never count against your allowance.

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 readable emails to your PodBright address. (2) PDFs — attach a text-based PDF up to 50 pages. (3) Web articles — use the Chrome extension to send readable web pages 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, on the Pro plan. Attach a text-based PDF up to 50 pages and send it to your PodBright address. Research papers, whitepapers, focused reports, and technical docs work well. PDFs count as one episode against your monthly allowance.

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, 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, articles, or dense PDFs 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. Newsletter/article mode, target length, difficulty, voice, and PDF mode are account-wide defaults. Settings apply to new episodes created after the change.

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 used during processing and discarded after audio is generated. We retain the episode title, a short AI-generated summary, metadata, and the audio file so your feed can work.

No. Your submitted content is processed to generate your episode and is not used by PodBright to train AI models.

Yes. Delete individual episodes from your dashboard at any time. You can also delete your account from Settings.