How to Set a Sleep Timer in a Podcast App so You Don’t Waste Space After Sleeping

Falling asleep to podcasts has become like a glass of warm milk before bed. In fact, it’s so popular that there is an entire podcasting genre all about dry topics and gentle conversations to help you fall asleep. It’s also a terrible catch-22: play your favorite podcast before bed and you might have to find the last place you remember when you woke up. If you’re not careful, you might even oversleep an entire playlist of unfinished shows.

Thankfully, many podcast apps now include sleep timer features that automatically pause an episode so you don’t miss out on the latest alien abduction theories or true crime evidence while you’re in Dreamland.

We’ll show you how to set sleep timers on popular apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocketcasts, and Spotify, but it’s worth noting that these aren’t the only podcast apps that include sleep timer support. Features like this are usually hidden somewhere in the Now Playing and Playing menus of a podcast app or in the app’s settings. Regardless of which app you are using, know that you need to turn on the sleep timer whenever you listen to music before bed (or for a REM sleep).

Apple Podcasts ( iOS )

1. Open Apple Podcasts.
2. Tap the Now Playing bar at the bottom of the app to expand it.
3. Scroll down and tap Sleep Timer.
4. Select the desired timer duration. The timer can be set to any five-minute interval from 5 to 60 minutes, or at the end of the current episode.
5. After you have started the timer, the player will now display a countdown clock showing the remaining time before the episode is paused. The timer will only count down while the podcast is playing – manually pause the podcast and the timer will also stop.

Google Podcasts ( Android )

1. Open the app.
2. Download the episode or tap the play bar at the bottom of the screen to expand it.
3. Tap the crescent-shaped icon.
4. Use the slider to set the timer delay (each point on the slider is 5 minutes), or click End Scene to automatically pause playback when the episode ends.
5. Click “Start” to start the timer.

Pocket casts ( Android , iOS )

1. Launch the Pocket Casts app.
2. Play a podcast or tap the small thumbnail of the picture to open the playback menu.
3. Tap the zzz icon.
4. Select one of the preset timer settings or press the “+” and “-” buttons at the bottom of the menu to adjust the timer delay.
5. Once installed, the “zzz” icon will flash to indicate that the timer is running. Note that the countdown will continue whether the podcast is playing or paused, but it can be edited with additional timing, changed to “end of current episode”, or canceled entirely by clicking the “zzz” icon to open the settings.

Spotify ( Android )

Spotify’s sleep timer settings work for both podcasts and music, but only on Android (at the time of this posting).

1. Open Spotify.
2. Click the More icon in the upper right corner of the Now Playing screen.
3. Tap Sleep Timer.
4. Set the timer duration (5 to 60 minutes or the end of the current episode / track).
5. You can also open the sleep timer menu during the countdown to manually pause it.

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