Druthers

Support

Druthers is run by one person. If something is wrong, telling me is genuinely useful — most of what's been fixed so far came from someone saying it felt off.

Getting it

How do I install it?
From the App Store, on your iPhone. It's free, and there's nothing to sign up for.
What do I need?
An iPhone running iOS 26 or later. There's no iPad or Mac version.
Does it cost anything?
No. No subscription, no paid tier, no ads.
Can I get new versions early?
There's a TestFlight build running ahead of the App Store one, if you'd like changes before they clear review. It's Apple's beta app, and the trade is the obvious one — newer, and occasionally rougher. The App Store copy is the one to use if you'd rather it just worked.

Getting your shows in

How do I add a podcast?
Search for it by name, or paste a feed URL directly if you have one.
I'm coming from another podcast app.
Export an OPML file from your old app — nearly all of them can, usually under settings or account — then import it into Druthers. Your subscriptions come across in one go. Play positions and history don't: no app exports those.
The import filled my queue with episodes I've already heard.
When you import or subscribe, the app asks whether you're already caught up on that show. Say you are and its back catalogue is marked as heard, so it won't be suggested. You can also mark a whole show as played later from the show's own screen.

The queue

Why is this episode in my queue?
Each suggestion shows a short reason — favourited, fresh for that show, you finish these, and so on. Press and hold it for the actual numbers behind the decision.
I don't want it suggesting anything.
Turn autopilot off in Settings. It stops adding episodes; everything you put in the queue yourself stays exactly where it is, and playback is unaffected.
An episode I'd started vanished.
It shouldn't — once you're about half a minute into something it's held in the queue until you finish it or remove it, specifically so this can't happen. If one did disappear, that's a bug worth reporting, and it helps to say roughly how far in you were.
One show is dominating the queue.
Each episode taken from a show makes the next one from that show score lower, so this should settle on its own. If a show is genuinely crowding everything out, tell me which one and how often it publishes.

Transcripts

Where do transcripts come from?
Some shows publish one in their feed, and the app uses it. When there isn't one, the app can make its own from the audio — that happens on the phone, and nothing is uploaded.
It asked for speech recognition permission.
That's iOS asking on the app's behalf before it transcribes anything. The audio never leaves the device; the first transcript you generate also downloads a speech model from Apple, which is the only thing that goes over the network. Say no and the rest of the app is unaffected.
Generating one is taking a while.
It runs many times faster than real time — an hour of audio in a minute or two on a recent phone — and the screen shows an estimate and the words as they arrive. Stop it at any point and nothing is kept.

Your data

Will my subscriptions move to a new phone?
Syncing through your own iCloud account is being built, and it isn't finished — don't rely on it yet. The way that works today is Export backup in Settings, which writes a single file holding your subscriptions, queue and listening history; restore it on the other device. Keep a copy somewhere safe.
What happens if I delete the app?
Downloads and per-device settings go with it. Subscriptions, queue, positions and history are also held in your own iCloud account, so reinstalling may bring them back — but that isn't finished and isn't something to rely on. Export a backup first if you want any of it for certain.
What do you collect about me?
Nothing. The privacy page is the long version.

Reporting a bug

Email hello@getdruthers.com. The things that make a report immediately actionable:

It's one person answering, so it may take a few days — but reports do get read.