This isn't about making a secure podcast, and it's not about making a popular big podcast. It's about making a simple private but non-secure podcast for free. This is what I did when deciding to read a book for my wife because, inexplicably to me, she really loves my voice. Â This is not meant to be an idiot proof guide but hopefully if you have some rudimentary programming or scripting skills you'll find it helpful. Â If you don't, then feel free to hack away or make your life more carefree and go with lipsyn.com
I chose to use free Dropbox and to do the rest myself "manually".  The steps are:
- Record what you want to post and export to mp3 format (see other post if I get around to it).
- Create an RSS file to describe your podcast in a way podcast players understand.
- Put all your podcasting related files in a publicly shared Dropbox folder, audio files, rss (xml) file, and image files.
- Access the the rss file from a podcast app.
Lets get to it.
Setup
- Have ready your recorded files. Â Assume it's called "episode1.mp3".
- Create a square 1400x14000 pixel image file for your podcast called "mypodcast.jpg"
- Create an "index.html" file for your podcast, it can be as simple as
<html>
This is my podcast
</html>
Create your RSS file
Create a text file named "mypodcast.rss" and edit it.
This is a XML file so you may be familiar with the formatting from other xml files or other files with a similar format.
Enter the following text in the file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0">
<channel>
<!-- Basic info on the Podcast-->
<title>The Title Of My Podcast</title>
<link>the_path_to_index.html</link>
<lastBuildDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2018 00:10:00 -0500</lastBuildDate>
<language>en-US</language>
<itunes:author>My Name</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>Summary description of my podcast</itunes:summary>
<description>Description of my podcast</description>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:keywords>keywords for my podcast</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>My Name</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>sigthorsson@gmail.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:category text="Arts"/>
<itunes:image href="path_to_mypodcast.jpg"" />
<copyright>Copyright 2018</copyright>
<webMaster>myemail@gmail.com (my name)</webMaster>
<atom:link href="path_to_mypodcast.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
<item>
[Stuff described in the next step]
<\item>
</channel>
</rss>
So far, except for the file paths, everything else above is fairly self explanatory where you can put in your own descriptions and information. Â Make those substitutions.
Next replace the item field as follows:
<item>
<!-- Each item: update the title, pubDate, link=guid=enclosure url (lenght=number of bytes), subtitle, summary, duration -->
<!-- Episode comment, doesn't appear anywhere -->
<title>My episode 1 title </title>
<pubDate>Sat, 14 Apr 2018 00:30:00 EST</pubDate>
<link>path_to_episode1.mp3</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">path_to_episode1.mp3</guid>
<description> Description of my episode 1 </description>
<itunes:author>My name </itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>Subtitle of my episode </itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>Summary description of my episode</itunes:summary>
<itunes:keywords>Reading</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:duration>00:41:51</itunes:duration>
<enclosure url="path_to_episode1.mp3" length="20107307" type="audio/mpeg"/>
</item>
Look at you episode1.mp3 file, find the duration of the file and the size of the file (in bytes). Â On a Mac you can get both those pieces of information by right clicking the file and selecting "Get info". Â Fill in the following
- The <itunes:duration> field in units of "hours:minutes:seconds"
- The length="..." as the size of the file in bytes, don't use ","s or "."s, just a string of digits.
This is enough for now, we'll get back to it once we've uploaded the files.
Upload to Dropbox
Create or log in to your Dropbox account.
For ease, you can install the Dropbox sync app and use a synced folder on your computer  for all your podcast files (.mp3 files, .html, and .rss)
- Upload your episode1.mp3, mypodcast.rss, mypodcast.jpg and mypodcast.html files into a Dropbox folder.
- Share the Dropbox folder and make it viewable by anyone (mouse over the folder, click the share button and select the option).
- Go into the folder.
- Mouse over each file, click the share button, click create a link.
- Copy each link name, it will have a format something like this:
- https://www.dropbox.com/s/p67vykeok9fo3fq/episode1.mp3?dl=0
- Create raw links by change substituting "/s/" with "/s/raw/" and removing the "?dl=0", example:
- https://www.dropbox.com/s/raw/p67vykeok9fo3fq/episode1.mp3
Add Links To The RSS File
Take all the shared links you recorded in the previous step and update the mypodcast.rss file. Â Replace all the "path_to_..." files with the appropriate Dropbox raw links.
Make sure the mypodcast.rss file in Dropbox is synced with the mypodcast.rss file you just edited.
Accessing Your Podcast
Go to your favorite Podcast app, like Overcast, and use the raw link you created earlier for mypodcast.rss and add it as a podcast feed.
Done!
Your podcast should now be working and coming up on your Podcast app with the icon image for your podcast and your one episode listed with it's title showing.
Adding More Podcast Episodes And Additional Notes
To add more episodes simply do the following:
- Record a new audio file, "episode2.mp3"
- Upload the file to Dropbox and create a raw link as before.
- Create the text for an <item> for episode2 as described before for episode1, updating the path, title, duration, and length for the file.
- Add the text below the <\item> for the previous episode.
- Don't forget to set the correct (or desired) date and time for the episode
- Update the <lastBuildDate> to the current date time (this should trigger the Podcast app to actually check the rest of the rss file and show you the new episode).
- Make sure the .rss file is synced.