Transfer Podcast using MacOS Catalina and Garmin Express

Does anyone knows how to transfer Podcasts to my Fenix 6 using MacOS Catalina? I do not wanna use Runcasts or Spotify. When connecting the watch to my Macbook and launching Garmin Express, I can navigate to Music, load the Podcasts I have and select the ones I want to transfer and press sync. I get an ok message and when browsing Podcasts on the watch in Garmin Express, the podcasts is listed there but as soon as I disconnect the watch and open up My music on the watch, it just says No Podcasts available.

Is this a known issue when using Catalina? Does it work with previous versions of MacOS (eg that has iTunes and not the new Music / Podcast app)? Is there a way to get the watch to show up as an external drive and just drag n drop? Had to use a virtual machine running Windows just to transfer some podcasts as for now.

Top Replies

Alexis_Lecanu over 5 years ago in reply to yago77 +1

Garmin Express could put the meta in the files maybe but I can confirm that some mp3 files do not have their metadata.

All Replies

0 yago77 over 5 years ago

I have the same problem. Try AndroidFileTransfer to upload

0 yago77 over 5 years ago

Still the same problem with 5.0 and macOS Catalina. "No podcasts available" on the watch after transfer them with Garmin Express. Even with AndroidFileTransfer says "no podcast available"

Anyone else?, any solution?

0 Alexis_Lecanu over 5 years ago

The problem comes from the metadata which are not present in the files downloaded by iTunes.
This is not your concern watch, but the hosts of your content.
For this I am in the process of dev a software to recover the podcast add the metadata then synchronize with the watch. But this software will be open source and you should ask for an API key because I don't want to pay an API license for everyone.
Otherwise ask your podcaster to put metadata in his files.

0 yago77 over 5 years ago in reply to Alexis_Lecanu

Thanks for the answer.

But Garmin Express recognize the podcast and upload them to the watch as a podcast... I think the problem is Garmin

0 Alexis_Lecanu over 5 years ago in reply to yago77

Garmin Express could put the meta in the files maybe but I can confirm that some mp3 files do not have their metadata.

0 martinlarvia over 5 years ago in reply to Alexis_Lecanu

Tested it out. Looks like the new podcast app in Catalina doesn't have the metadata in the actual file. Adding the metadata manually and then transfer the file using Android File Transfer to the watch makes the podcast show in the podcast section on the watch.

0 dewarner over 5 years ago in reply to martinlarvia

It is already a horrible process to have to use Android File Transfer just to load podcasts, but having to add metadata makes it even worse. What is the process for adding metadata to a podcast?

0 Alexis_Lecanu over 5 years ago in reply to dewarner

You can use kid3 software that allows you to do that. Otherwise I am in the process of developing a podcast application on the watch and Android phone with a python server all free so that we can read our podcasts properly because I too am getting annoyed.

0 doctormich over 5 years ago

Try Commander One apps.apple.com/.../id1035236694

0 Bart Gossen over 4 years ago

You can give it a try with RetroActive. It’s possible to install iTunes on Catalina.

github.com/.../