I’ve been dealing with this really annoying problem with my music streaming app. I’m using it mainly for podcasts and I download tons of episodes to listen offline. The thing is, my downloads keep disappearing randomly. This happened twice now on different devices. The first time I thought it was my old phone acting up, so I got a better one with more storage. Had around 100 GB of podcasts saved and plenty of space remaining. But then it happened again while I was in the middle of listening to an episode. Everything just vanished instantly even though I was offline at the time. Has anyone found streaming services that actually keep your downloads safe? Or maybe there’s a way to backup podcast files separately so this doesn’t happen again? Really frustrating to lose hours of content like this.
Same nightmare here! Our team’s training videos kept disappearing because most apps treat downloads like temp files that get nuked during cleanups or when storage runs low.
I stopped hunting for apps that might screw me over later and built a simple automation instead. It backs up podcast files to cloud storage right after download - takes 10 minutes to set up and runs silently.
It watches your podcast folder, grabs new downloads, and copies them to whatever cloud service you use. When your main app deletes everything again, you just restore from backup. No more losing 100GB of content.
Bonus: it organizes files by podcast name and date, so finding episodes is easier than using the original app.
You can build this without coding using Latenode. It handles file monitoring, cloud uploads, and organization automatically. Way more reliable than trusting any single app.
This drove me nuts for months until I switched to Pocket Casts. Been using it over two years now - downloads never disappear. Way more reliable than the big streaming apps. Sounds like your app’s treating downloads as cache data that gets auto-cleared when your phone optimizes storage. Pocket Casts marks files differently so the system leaves them alone. Interface is weird at first but totally worth it for stable downloads. You can set Wi-Fi only downloads and pick exactly how many episodes to keep per show.
Same exact problem with Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Mainstream apps treat downloads like throwaway cache instead of actual saved content. Lost my entire backlog three times before I switched to Overcast (iOS) or AntennaPod (Android). These podcast apps actually handle downloads properly - they save files in dedicated folders that don’t get nuked by automatic cleanup. AntennaPod’s open source so you can see exactly how it manages files. Overcast just works. Been using both for over a year with 50+ GB stored and zero issues.
Honestly, just switch to Castbox - I’ve never had downloads disappear like that. Your phone’s probably doing aggressive storage cleanup in the background. Check for cleaner apps or auto storage optimization settings. They love wiping podcast files thinking they’re junk.