I've always wondered why some podcast applications don't consider episode length as an important factor in how people decide what to listen to. If I only have twenty minutes during my commute or 30 minutes on my drive, I don't want to start a lengthier episode and be forced to pause before it's over. A few podcast players recognized this a long time ago, but Pocket Casts remained an outlier until recently when it added sorting by episode length. Now it's also implementing duration filters.

In the latest Pocket Casts v7.11 stable, you'll find a new Duration bubble in the top row below any filter. That lets you restrict the display to episodes of a specific duration. Both a minimum and maximum option can be set, in five minute increments. That way you can quickly spot which episodes fit your short commute or your open-ended listening session.

WHAT'S NEW

Goldilocks was complaining to us about her commute, that her New Releases filter was filled with episodes that were always either too long, or too short! We couldn’t bear to listen to this story any longer, so we added the ability to filter by duration. In any Episode Filter, tap the “Duration” chip to start limiting by length.

In v7.12 beta (which you can sign up for here), the app is also getting a lot of additional improvements. There's better integration with Android 11's media notifications, but more important are the new episode multi-select options. You can now un-star, un-archive, remove the download, and mark as unplayed; so actions are now a two-way street, not a positive action only. In the screenshots below, the four episodes I selected are saved for offline listening, so the first action (an x on top of a horizontal line) is for removing the downloads. You can also tap the overflow button then the pencil to rearrange options and make sure your most-used ones are on top.

WHAT'S NEW

Version 7.12 expands on the multi-select support you all seem to love, with even more enhancements:

- You can now perform actions like un-star, un-archive, mark as unplayed and removing downloads. That's right, it's opposite day!

- You can now re-arrange multi-select actions

- Added support for the Android 11 media notification and recent playback items feature

- Improved rearranging of up next

- Duration filtering in an Episode filter can now be set as low as 1 minute

Both versions of Pocket Casts are now available on the Play Store, depending on whether you're enrolled in the beta or not. You can also grab v7.11 and v7.12 beta from APK Mirror.