How much data do podcasts use?

The show decides the size, not the app

• Mono at 64 kbps: about 29 MB per hour.
• Mono at 128 kbps, or stereo at 128 kbps: about 58 MB per hour.
• Stereo at 256 kbps: about 115 MB per hour.

The bitrates are the ranges Apple recommends to creators for podcast feeds at 44.1 or 48 kHz, in its Apple Podcasts for Creators audio requirements. The megabytes are plain arithmetic: kilobits per second, times 3,600 seconds, divided by 8,000. Apple's minimums go lower, so a few shows weigh less than this.

Apps that play the publisher's file, like Apple Podcasts and Pocket Casts, download what the show put online. Spotify is different: it publishes its own figures for podcasts and lets you lower audio quality, which the Spotify guide covers. Either way, an hour of talk costs far less than a few minutes of video.

Streaming and downloading cost the same, at different times

A one-hour episode at 128 kbps is about 58 MB whether you stream it on the bus or download it first. What changes is which connection pays. Downloaded at the hotel the night before, it costs your travel plan nothing; streamed on mobile data, it all comes out of the allowance.

For a two-week trip with an hour of podcasts a day, that is roughly 0.8 GB streamed at 128 kbps, or about 0.4 GB if your shows are mono at 64 kbps. Not huge, but more than most people guess, and very easy to avoid. Add your other habits in the data calculator to see how much room that leaves.

Apple Podcasts: what downloads on its own

When you follow a show, Apple Podcasts automatically downloads the newest episode. In Settings, Apps, Podcasts, Automatically Download lets you choose how many episodes or what timeframe to keep, or turn it off. Remove Played Downloads deletes episodes 24 hours after you play them, which frees space but means a replay streams again.

Video podcasts have their own switches. By default only the audio of a video episode is downloaded; Download Video changes that. Under Video Streaming, turning off Allow Over Cellular keeps video streams on Wi-Fi only, and for automatic downloads Allow Over Cellular lets you choose Audio Only or Video.

Low Data Mode helps too. Apple says that with it on, Podcasts checks feeds less often and only downloads episodes on Wi-Fi.

Pocket Casts: the Android setting that surprises

Pocket Casts does not auto-download on mobile data by default; the switch is Only on unmetered WiFi, under Profile, Settings, Auto download. Manual downloads still work on data.

The surprise is on Android. Pocket Casts says that when you stream an episode, it downloads the rest of it in the background so skipping ahead is instant. This Cache playing episode setting is on by default, and because the whole episode is fetched, a stream you abandon after ten minutes can still cost the full file. To stop it, go to Profile, Settings, Advanced and turn off Cache playing episode under Playback.

The alternative is Warn before using data, in Storage & data use. On Android it pauses a stream when the phone moves from Wi-Fi to mobile data and limits the cache to unmetered Wi-Fi.

The night before: a playlist for the whole trip

The easiest plan is to download everything you will listen to while you are still on Wi-Fi: the episodes for the flight, the train and the evenings. In Apple Podcasts, saving an episode downloads it automatically unless you turned off Download When Saving. In Pocket Casts, you can download from each episode or let Up Next downloads handle it.

Check the storage before you go, especially with video shows. Then leave automatic downloads restricted to Wi-Fi for the rest of the trip, so new episodes wait for the hotel connection instead of arriving on the street. On a data-only eSIM, everything else on the phone keeps working as usual; the podcasts simply never touch the plan.