🗂️ What is TubeCast

• Converts YouTube channels or videos into personal podcast feeds.
• Lets you follow these feeds in any podcast app (like Apple Podcasts, Castbox, or Pocket Casts) simply by adding the feed URL.
• Uploads everything to the Internet Archive for free, cloud-based hosting.
• Feeds are always up-to-date—new episodes appear in your podcast app whenever you sync.
• Listen on any device, even with your screen off—just like a real podcast.
• Share your feeds easily with friends and family.

Demo

• Paste this show link on your podcast app: https://archive.org/download/fitrahhaque_tubecast/bloop.xml
• You will find it in Shows (for Apple Podcasts) list if it does not appear right away.

📡 Quick‑Start

The tubecast-scripts folder contains everything you need to run TubeCast. Each shell script wraps the necessary docker compose calls so non‑technical users only have to run a single command per task.

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✨ What’s inside

File	Purpose
example.txt	Template for your secrets (rename to .env).
docker-compose.yml	Defines the tubecast container + volumes.
init.sh	One‑time setup: pulls the image, downloads the ia CLI.
sync.sh	Runs the regular podcast sync (no extra flags).
create-show.sh	Creates a new show.
sync-channel.sh	Adds 3 latest videos from a YouTube channel and subscribes to the channel for later sync.
add-video.sh	Adds a single YouTube video to a show.
remove-video.sh	Removes one video from a show.
remove-show.sh	Deletes an entire show.

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🚀 Set-up

Note: You will need to use terminal (macOS), command prompt or powershell (windows) to be able to run them. Open the corresponding app and paste the commands as they are. Best to use vscode

Unzip this folder and go into the directory and open terminal

cd tubecast-scripts

Set-up environment

0. There is a file named example.txt. Open it.
1. Set the username. It is used to create item identifier inside your Internet Archive, where all shows and their data will be hosted.
   Item identifier looks like this: <username>_tubecast
   If you want to host your feed on github pages, make sure to use the github username (small letters). It will be used to derive the url to your RSS feed.
2. Set the home directory. It is used to fetch your ia configuration (IA-S3 Access key, Secret Key, and cookies). Here's how you can get it:

• Go to your home directory

cd ~

• Print the home directory on the console

pwd

3. Copy the output and put it on the HOME_DIR environment variable inside .env file

4. Set the archive to Yes if you want the feed to be hosted on archive (recommended). By default, it is set to Yes.
   Your RSS Feed will look like this: https://archive.org/download/<username>_tubecast/<show_title>.xml

   However, if you want otherwise, set it anything else and make sure you have your github username, all in small letters set as the username environment variable.
   Your RSS Feed will look like this: https://<username>.github.io/<name_of_your_repo>/feed/<show_title>.xml
   Even if you host it on archive, you can still use the link to your github page as your feed (after pushing the commit every time, and using /docs as your host, of course).

5. Change the filename example.txt to .env

cp example.txt .env

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Initialise the app

Make init.sh executable

chmod +x init.sh

Run the one‑time initializer

./init.sh

Now, you have to configure internet archive. Go to this link https://archive.org/account/signup and sign up with EMAIL and PASSWORD and verify. Then run the below command on your terminal:

./ia configure

Set up your email and password that you just created your archive account with. The password does not appear on the screen even if you type or paste it for security purposes. Type ENTER after providing your password.

You are now all set!!!

📜 Script reference

These are commands that you will use to interact with the application. Follow the examples to create your own show.

0. Cover Image

1. If you want to add a cover to your show, provide an image in the format .webp or .png as the show cover. Make sure the the resolution is between 1400 x 1400 and 3000 x 3000 as per the Apple Podcast requirement. You can use the this tool to resize the image. In order to include a cover image (optional)
2. Inside your tubecast-scripts directory there's a folder named tubecast and inside that there's another folder named cover.
3. The cover image name should follow this format: cover_<show_title>.png or cover_<show_title>.webp
   So, the path to the cover image will look like this:
   ./tubecast-scripts/tubecast/cover/cover_<show_title>.webp

1. create-show.sh

./create-show.sh --title="Medicine" --description="Medical lectures"

It will create a show with the provided title and description. This is still not ready to use it as a feed for your podcast app. In the subsequent commands, you can use this show by the title.

2. sync-channel.sh

./sync-channel.sh --title="Medicine" --channel-id="ThePrimeTimeagen"

The show by the title will subscribe to the channel and will fetch the latest 3 videos from the channel.
Upon success, you will see a link pasted on the console.
Now you can add this feed to a podcast app and listen to the audios. Wait a few minutes for it to be available. Internet Archive takes time to update. Convenience costs money :( In the subsequent sync commands, the show will fetch the latest videos from the channel automatically.

Note: If you follow the show by the URL on your podcast app once, you don't need to do it everytime you update the url for any of the subsequent commands on this show, just like how you'd expect!

3. add-video.sh

./add-video.sh --title="Medicine" --description="The Real Show" --video-url="https://youtu.be/xvFZjo5PgG0?si=-BV8fIKLdQDzdBJO"

You are required to provide the video-url of the video you wish to add to the show by the title. If the show does not exist, this command will create one, with the provided description.

4. remove-video.sh

./remove-video.sh --title="Medicine" --video-url="https://youtu.be/xvFZjo5PgG0?si=-BV8fIKLdQDzdBJO"

You are required to provide the video-url of the video you wish to remove from the show by the title.

5. sync.sh

For all of your shows, it fetches latest 3 videos from the channels you are subscribed to.

./sync.sh

6. remove-show.sh

./remove-show.sh --title="Medicine"

It deletes the show completely, along with the archive data.

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🔧 Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
docker: command not found	Install Docker Desktop (Mac/Win) or Docker Engine (Linux).
ia: command not found	Rerun ./init.sh or make sure ia binary is in this folder.

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📄 License