How to mark your podcast on YouTube as a podcast
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There’s one thing that can make all the difference to your YouTube podcast… and that’s to mark it as a podcast.
On YouTube, a podcast show is a playlist; and podcast episodes are videos in that playlist. But this playlist needs to be marked as a podcast to really benefit.
Why you should make a playlist a podcast
If you mark a playlist as a podcast, then you get lots of extra things:
- You get in YouTube Music - only podcasts appear in YouTube Music’s podcast section. Regular videos don’t. So you’ll want to mark it as a podcast.
- You get a “podcasts” section in your YouTube channel, so people can really easily find your podcast.
- You could get a spotlight on youtube.com/podcasts - that’s the specific YouTube podcast discovery engine
- You get special “podcast” badges on your watch and playlist pages. (Here’s a watch page, and a playlist page.)
- Your podcast uses the same square thumbnail as your show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, to make it easier to find among other podcasts
- You can set the order that the episodes play in - first-to-last or latest first.
- Podnews can list your show’s YouTube page on your podcast page. Our systems won’t let us do it without that.
If you don’t mark your show as a podcast, you don’t get any of these things.
Mark your show as a podcast
It’s dead easy to do.
- Go to YouTube Studio
- Go to “Content ” - “Playlists”.
- Hover over the playlist you want to mark as a podcast.
- Click “Options ⋮ ” - “Add Podcast Features”
- Review your details, add a square podcast thumbnail, and you’re good.
What not to mark as a podcast
Only full podcast episodes should be in this playlist. YouTube Shorts aren’t podcast episodes, so don’t put them in there. The same goes for clips.
YouTube can be a very important discovery mechanism for your podcast. But only if you tell YouTube that it’s a podcast.
James Cridland is the Editor of Podnews, a keynote speaker and consultant. He wrote his first podcast RSS feed in January 2005; and also launched the first live radio streaming app for mobile phones in the same year. He's worked in the audio industry since 1989, and was inducted into the Podcast Hall of Fame in 2026.
