Search by idea, follow a question, or let boxlore suggest what’s next.
Then it stays quiet while you listen. Free, with no app ads and no paywalls.
What’s new · Curious · Calm · Yours · Every feature · Questions · Install · The soul of boxlore · What we track
Read the release notes
🚨 Critical:
- Fixed a release-build issue that could prevent automatic and Smart downloads from starting.
- Smaller app download while retaining artwork, fonts and notification sounds.
- Home's top cards now show each show's full cover. Pick Block, Cover, Tide, Duotone, Halo or Marquee, with colour options for each, in Settings > Appearance > Home.
- Marquee puts one big cover under the top bar and moves to the next card on its own, pausing while you touch it. Tablets show Cover cards instead.
- Appearance settings open on a short overview, with separate pages for Home, the player, navigation and text.
- Tablets and foldables now have layouts that fit their space, with side navigation, split Settings and more room for browsing and playback.
- Tablet layouts are in alpha. A one-time notice before Welcome shows how to send feedback from the Home top bar.
- Meet Echo when you first open boxlore: answer a few questions, react to a few shows, then pick what to follow.
- Home is tidier, loads more smoothly, and has a new Because you like card. Prefer the earlier hero cards? Choose Classic in Appearance.
- The player and mini player take their colours from the show’s cover, with progress shown around the cover.
- Lore cards show the whole question and story, and the deck moves smoothly as you swipe.
- The boxlore brief shows its layout while an edition loads.
- Add a soft blur behind the floating navigation bar, or turn it off, in Appearance.
- Meet boxlore with a new welcome screen: moving podcast covers, a playful invitation and clear choices to find shows, search or import your library.
- Welcome adapts to smaller screens and larger text, and respects your phone's animation settings.
- Choose the new bunpod player in Appearance settings for a minimal listening screen with larger titles, artwork-inspired colors and expressive controls. Your queue and miniplayer stay the same.
- The boxlore Brief has refreshed regional artwork, clearer headlines and layouts that match your light or dark theme.
- Choose your default Brief edition without changing your podcast discovery region.
- Account setup and cloud sync have clearer progress and actions, with no miniplayer covering the page.
- Daily Mix episode cards are easier to distinguish across themes.
- A refreshed Home brings larger artwork, readable titles and clearer listening progress. Tap artwork to play or a title to open episode details.
- Your shows and Daily mix now share a smoother layout with expressive selections and transitions.
- Missing artwork uses the boxlore mark, and cards have more consistent tap feedback across the app.
- Explore has refreshed cards, genre filters and collection shortcuts that match Home.
- Swipe between For You and Top, keep search within reach while scrolling, and switch tabs above the player.
- Search suggestions and results are easier to scan, with distinct cards for shows and episodes.
- Download updates in boxlore if you installed from GitHub, with download progress and checks before installation.
- Read release notes and upcoming changes from Settings → Check for updates.
- Read longer announcements in compact or full-screen layouts, with actions that stay visible as you scroll.
- Browse shows with clearer controls, compact episode cards and search that keeps the episode list in view.
- Let podcast and episode pages match their artwork, or turn artwork colors off in Appearance.
- Create your own theme with live light and dark previews.
- Open episodes with clearer playback controls, artwork and reading layouts.
- Find chapters and useful links more easily, with recognizable icons and shorter social profile labels.
- Browse the show’s five latest episodes directly from the episode page.
- Browse Home with clearer sections, sharper artwork and refreshed Daily Mix cards.
- Enjoy updated colours and logos, with time-of-day animations that wait until the heading is in view.
- Share episodes with cleaner “Listen on boxlore” branding.
- Lore colors now blend as you swipe between cards.
- Lore cards have more reading room, larger playback controls, and clearer swipe feedback.
- The Lore queue prompt explains how to start a new queue or add episodes to your current one.
- Imported RSS shows now refresh and support automatic and Smart Downloads. Existing imports upgrade while keeping your saved state.
- Enable release notifications for public RSS feeds after confirmation. Keep notifications off for private or premium feeds because the shared checker publishes feed URLs in public backups.
- A show's colours now match across its page, its episodes and the player.
- Episode pages recognise far more trailers and promos for other shows, and link to the show being promoted.
- Home’s setup options now use a compact layout with clearer choices to find shows, search podcasts or import your library.
- Customize your theme with a live preview, quick color choices and more precise controls.
- Enjoy refined Classic, Pure and Material 3 colors, with clearer panels and episode cards in Pure mode.
- Choose from sixteen new complete themes, with simple light/dark previews and clearer wallpaper and custom-color controls.
- Automatic download settings are easier to read, with grouped controls and a separate help guide.
- Backup background checks now clearly explain how they help when show notifications are off or do not arrive.
- Improve tablet card sizing, spacing and dark-mode readability, and keep player controls above system navigation.
- Show pages no longer load forever when show details can’t be reached.
- The boxlore brief card stays on Home until you finish or hide it.
- Older Briefs show the correct artwork after an update or cloud restore, without losing listening progress.
- Episode artwork can fall back to the show cover when its image is unavailable.
- Covers that failed to load can recover after reconnecting or loading successfully on another page.
- New episodes appear newest first, and the offline Daily mix action takes you to downloads.
- Back from a collection returns to where you were in Explore.
- Search cards show a specific genre when available, instead of a generic Podcast label.
- Rounded controls keep their shape while scrolling and pressing.
- Notification actions open the intended screen or link whether boxlore is already open or starting.
- Prepared updates remain available after returning from Android's install-permission settings or cancelling installation.
- Smoother page colors when opening details, loading another page or going back.
- Featured-show cards now recognize more introductions to other podcasts.
- Social links use a profile username when known, instead of repeating the platform name.
- Daily Mix now uses show artwork when an episode has none.
- A caught-up Daily Mix takes up less space.
- Jump back in shows real covers again after syncing.
- Fullscreen transcripts keep their controls on screen.
- Navigation highlights match your chosen accent, and the miniplayer stays above the navbar when Android navigation buttons are enabled.
- When automatic downloads depend on opening boxlore, a notice explains this and offers to turn on show notifications.
🚨 Critical:
- Automatic downloads now recover new episodes when an episode alert is missing, resume after interruptions, and work with notifications turned off. Manually saved episodes stay protected.
- The floating player shrinks into a compact artwork control as you scroll, with playback progress kept visible and Lore moving into the navigation bar.
- Enjoy refined miniplayer controls and smoother transitions into the full player. Optional seek buttons are available in Appearance settings.
- Home loads more consistently, with smoother loading placeholders and less content blinking during refreshes.
- Background episode checks are now optional in Auto-Download Settings. They start off, explain their battery and data costs, offer network and charging restrictions, and pause when the battery is low.
- Auto-downloads still use new-episode pushes and normal refreshes while boxlore is open. Routine feed checks now share a six-hour cooldown and refresh large libraries in smaller batches.
- Added a dedicated Support boxlore experience in Settings with interactive tactical artifacts and lore inspection.
- Floating tab selectors and Play All follow the player's compact position.
- Lore colours follow the active artwork more reliably, and long Settings titles wrap across two lines.
- New Episodes now plays the remaining list in order and resumes unfinished episodes at the right position.
- Search by idea. Describe a topic and get episodes about it, not just shows with that word in the name.
- Lore. Swipe through questions that lead to episodes you’d never have searched for.
- Recommendations. Picks shaped by what you actually listen to, on Home, in Explore and in your queue.
- The boxlore brief. An optional daily news episode, with sources.
- No app ads, no paywalls. Every listening feature is free.
- Pages that follow the show. Show and episode pages take on the colours of the show’s artwork.
- A player that stays out of your way. Sleep timer, chapters, transcripts, and intro and outro skipping.
- Ready before you go offline. Smart Downloads get new episodes onto your phone.
- Classic, Pure, or Material 3? Start from one of three styles, or build your own theme from any colour you like.
- Floating navigation, or a classic bar? And Crisp, Soft or Round lettering.
- Skip the intro? Set where playback starts, and how far each skip goes.
- Tagged Tech, but it’s really Philosophy? Then it’s Philosophy. Give any show you follow your own tag and icon.
- Coming from another app? Import your shows, add any RSS feed by its link, including private ones, and back up everything.
- And much, much more. See every feature.
- Search by idea. Describe a topic and get shows and episodes about it, even when the words don’t match. Misspelled show names still work.
- Recommendations. Matched on boxlore’s servers from what you’ve listened to, liked or finished, then re-ranked on your phone. On Home, in Explore’s For You, and in Smart Queue.
- Home. Daily Mix, Because you like, rows for the time of day, and trending shows.
- Lore. Question cards that each lead to an episode. What you play and skip teaches your taste.
- The boxlore brief. An optional daily news episode with sources, in Global, India, US and UK editions.
- A start that asks first. Answer a few questions and get shows to begin with, or search, pick genres, or import your library.
- Player. Audio and video episodes, 0.5× to 3× speed, and a sleep timer that can stop at the end of the episode.
- Seek and skip. Separate back and forward amounts from 5 to 120 seconds, optional seek buttons on the miniplayer, and intro and outro skipping with per-show overrides.
- Chapters and transcripts. Chapters and transcripts that follow playback, chapters read from show-note timestamps, and both saved with downloads.
- Smart Queue. Keeps something playing: the next episode, unfinished listening, new episodes, then recommendations. Or keep it to the show you’re playing.
- Support a show. A show’s funding links appear as a Support chip on its page.
- Folders. Group shows in folders from 1×1 to 3×3, or let boxlore sort them by genre. Reorder folders and shows however you like.
- Tags and icons. Give any show you follow your own tag and one of 31 icons. Tags become filters at the top of your shows.
- Downloads. Auto-downloads for the shows you choose, and Smart Downloads with episode and storage limits, Wi-Fi and charging options, and auto-delete for played episodes.
- Alerts. Choose which shows send new-episode alerts.
- Any RSS feed. Add a show by its feed link, including private links.
- Themes. Classic, Pure, Material 3 from your wallpaper, or a custom theme from any colour.
- Artwork colours. Show and episode pages can match the show’s artwork, or keep your theme everywhere.
- Layout. Floating or classic navigation, Crisp, Soft or Round lettering, and player layout.
- Android Auto. Browse Home, Library, Downloads and Discover in the car. Playback picks up when you reconnect.
- Google Cast. Play on TVs and speakers, with the player in the app kept in sync.
- Widgets. Now Playing, playback controls, Your Shows and New Episodes.
- Cloud sync. Sign in with an optional account to back up your library and keep it in sync across your devices.
- Full backup. Export your shows, tags, folders, history, likes and settings to a file, and restore them later.
- OPML. Import and export your subscriptions to move between podcast apps.
Always free, with no app ads, no subscriptions and no paywalls.
Is boxlore free?
Yes. No subscriptions, no paywalls, and no app ads. The soul of boxlore explains why it stays that way.
Will I hear ads?
Not from boxlore. Some podcasts include ads their creators put in their own episodes, and those play as part of the show.
How do recommendations work?
boxlore’s servers match episodes to what you’ve listened to recently. Your phone then fine-tunes the order for your playback habits. What we track and why has the details.
Why can’t I find a show that’s exclusive to another app?
boxlore plays public podcasts from the Podcast Index and any RSS feed you add. Platform exclusives aren’t published openly, so they aren’t here.
Can I add a private or paid feed?
Yes, if the feed has its own private link. Go to Settings → Library and add it. Feeds that need a separate username and password aren’t supported yet, and new-episode alerts should stay off for private feeds.
Can I sync between phones?
Yes. Sign in with an optional account to back up your library and keep it in sync across your devices. boxlore works fully without one.
Can I bring my shows from another app?
Yes. Import a subscription file (OPML) when you start, or later from Settings. You can export your subscriptions or a full backup at any time.
Is boxlore open source?
The Android app is source-available under the PolyForm Strict License 1.0.0: you can read the code and run it for personal, noncommercial use, but not redistribute it. The servers behind search and recommendations are private.
- Google Play is the recommended install.
- GitHub Releases has the latest APK for sideloading.
- Obtainium adds boxlore with automatic update tracking.
Android may ask you to allow installation from your browser or file manager when sideloading. boxlore needs Android 12 or later.
Report a bug · Share an idea · View the roadmap · The soul of boxlore · What we track
Ideas from listeners shape the roadmap. If something breaks or feels missing, tell us.
The boxlore Android app is source-available under the PolyForm Strict License 1.0.0. The servers behind search and recommendations are private.