FolderCast is a self-hosted web app that generates podcast-ready RSS feeds from your local audio folders. It scans your chosen library directories, generates standard podcast feeds, and gives you a unique link (and QR code) for each one. Simply add that link to your favorite podcast player and stream your personal audio collection (lectures, YouTube downloads, audiobooks, or voice notes) just like a regular podcast. Everything runs locally and stays fully under your control.

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The Problem (What FolderCast Tries to Solve)

You probably have some or all of the following:

• YouTube videos converted to MP3s because you only care about the audio.
• Recorded or downloaded university lectures.
• Long personal voice notes.
• Any other long-form audio files.

You’d like to listen to these on the go (in the car, while walking, cooking, or doing chores). Sure, you could copy them to your phone and use a regular audio player, but that quickly becomes a hassle. And once you do, you realize most music players aren’t built for long-form listening. They:

• Don’t remember your playback position.
• Have tiny scrubbers that make seeking in 2-hour files painful.
• Lack skip-forward/rewind controls.
• Don’t track which files you’ve finished.

So, maybe you try a podcast app instead: Perfect for long content, bookmarking, and smart playback, but now you face another problem: how do you get your personal audio files into your podcast player?

That’s where FolderCast comes in.

FolderCast automatically generates standard podcast RSS feeds for your audio folders. Each folder becomes its own podcast, and each audio file within it appears as an episode. You can manually subscribe to the feed in any podcast player (copy/paste feed URL, or simply scan its QR code with your phone). Your private “podcasts” appear right alongside your regular subscriptions, but they’re hosted locally, accessible only from your own network.

This gives you all the power of a modern podcast player, including:

• Organized playback with one feed per folder.
• Streaming or downloading episodes.
• Playback position tracking.
• Play, pause, rewind, skip, speed-up, silence trimming, and more.
• Visual indicators for listened/unlistened files.
• Automatic updates when new audio files are added to a folder.
• Optional automatic episode downloads.
• Syncing progress across devices (via tools like GPoddersync/Nextcloud).

That’s what listening on a regular podcast player app gives you. But to get there, FolderCast offers you a set of features.

FolderCast Features

• A single web interface for managing your entire local audio library.
• Organize files naturally into directories: one podcast feed per directory.
• Feeds follow standard podcast specifications and work with most podcast apps.
• Automatically generated artwork (thumbnail) for each feed, featuring the folder name.
• QR code generation for quick mobile subscriptions.
• Feed status indicators (Up to Date, Stale, No Feed).
• Smart feed generation: updates only when directories change.

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Running FolderCast

FolderCast runs entirely in Docker using Docker Compose, so you don’t need to install Python or dependencies on your host.

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ahmedlemine/foldercast.git
cd foldercast

2. Create your local library

FolderCast stores all your audio folders, generated feeds, QR codes, and artwork inside a local directory called library. Create it manually in foldercast directory (recommended) and make sure it’s owned by your current user:

mkdir -p ./library
chown $USER:$USER ./library

3. Create your environment file

Copy the example .env file and update values as needed:

cp example.env .env

At minimum, set your Django secret key (get a new one at Djecrety):

SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS=<http://<your_server_ip>:<server_port>

4. Build and start the containers

docker compose up -d --build

This will:

• Build the app container (Django + Gunicorn)
• Start nginx to serve static/media files and reverse proxy to Django
• Automatically create the ./library/ directory if it doesn’t exist. However, you should’ve already created this directory in step #2 to avoid permission issues.

5. Access FolderCast

Once running, open your browser and visit:

http://<you_host_ip>:8123

7. Stopping and restarting

Stop the stack:

docker compose down

Restart after changes:

docker compose up -d

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Contributing & Feedback

FolderCast is focused on doing one thing, and doing it well: turning your audio folders into podcast-ready RSS feeds.

It’s not trying to be a media server, a cloud sync tool, or a file uploader. Its goal is simplicity, reliability, and staying true to its purpose: generating clean, standard feeds for your audio collection.

If you find bugs, have suggestions that directly improve that core purpose, or want to share how you’re using FolderCast, contributions and feedback are very welcome.

You can:

• Open an issue or pull request on GitHub.
• Suggest refinements that make feed generation or local hosting better.
• Share ideas for improving usability without adding unnecessary complexity.