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[Enhancement]: Add support for the ARD Audiothek #2872
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Reference: starred/audiobookshelf#2872
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Originally created by @ZeroDot1 on GitHub (Jul 6, 2025).
Type of Enhancement
Server Backend
Describe the Feature/Enhancement
Add support for the ARD Audiothek.
It would be really cool if you could download podcasts directly from the audio library.
https://www.ardaudiothek.de/
Why would this be helpful?
https://github.com/matztam/ARD-Audiothek-RSS
It would help to discover a large world of podcastst.
Future Implementation (Screenshot)
Audiobookshelf Server Version
latest
Current Implementation (Screenshot)
No response
@nichwall commented on GitHub (Jul 6, 2025):
By definition, podcasts should have an RSS feed, which is what Audiobookshelf uses to download episodes.
Additional website-specific downloading is unlikely to be added to the server, so if you want to add downloading from specific websites that do not provide an RSS feed, you will need to use something else to download the files or create an RSS feed (like the tool you shared).
@advplyr commented on GitHub (Jul 6, 2025):
Can you elaborate on what you are requesting? I don't understand.
Please provide the version when opening issues. When referencing older issues "latest" isn't helpful
@Vito0912 commented on GitHub (Jul 7, 2025):
You can use something like RSS-Bridge for the ARD-Audiothek. It also has public instances, so you do not need to host anything yourself.
https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge
Sometimes the RSS stream is also available on other platforms, but only very very few sadly. (The GEZ apparently isn't high enough for an RSS feed ;))
See: https://hilfe.ard.de/artikel/keine-rss-feeds-in-der-ard-audiothek/
For you advplyr: The ARD Audiothek is a streaming platform for podcasts from German public TV stations. They let you download episodes, but they do not offer any RSS feed.
This would require scraping etc.
I therefor think this issue can be closed imho
@ZeroDot1 commented on GitHub (Jul 8, 2025):
@advplyr I have been looking for alternative solutions, we have noticed more bugs, please have a look at the following comment. https://github.com/tufteddeer/audiothek-feed/issues/1#issuecomment-3048569697
I used Audiobookshelf with the setting DISABLE_SSRF_REQUEST_FILTER=1 as a Docker container.
@Vito0912 commented on GitHub (Jul 8, 2025):
Please provide more information about how you set up ABS. Include the URL you entered, the logs from ABS, and also the logs from Audiothek.
@GlassedSilver commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
Not OP, but the reality of podcasts these days is that less and less of them are provided thorough fully open means in the form of RSS.
In terms of UX it's a bit... weird... to expect every user to tackle this themselves. I rarely voice hot takes, but IMHO it doesn't live up to the otherwise simple, but very functional UX and UI of ABS.
@advplyr commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
Abs allows you to scan in podcasts that don't have an rss feed
@GlassedSilver commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
Doesn't work with ARD Audiothek ones though as far as I can tell? And apparently unlike with Spotify there is a reliable way to get them from there.
@nichwall commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
Audiobookshelf is first and foremost a local media server. Downloading podcasts from RSS feeds is provided as convenience since podcasts are historically defined as being distributed through an RSS feed (though many now use the word "podcast" to include other forms of distribution, such as Spotify, Audible, or YouTube).
I don't think providing a method to scrape websites for downloading media or fetching metadata should be included in ABS, same as it is for audiobooks. If a user needs a different metadata provider, there is an API for adding custom audiobook metadata providers. In a similar way, RSS feeds provide this "custom metadata provider".
These custom RSS feeds can be created manually or by using other tools. They can also be hosted publicly or privately on just your local network. Having this as a separate project/service does not tie ABS versions to a specific version of a website that can change at any time.
@GlassedSilver commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
I understand where you're coming from, but your reasoning is more technical than it is latching on to the real life reality of average users.
That's why I argued based on UX and not an inherent technical reason this would be wise to add.
Moreover if this had been so opaquely irrelevant to the software, why has the issue been left open for that long?
If I was a dev I'd be happy to help out, as it is I'm just a rather tech-savvy user who can help herself out using methods you describe (and hoping whatever I use to work that in has similar care for detail and functionality).
But I know there are users out there who simply are that: users, trying to get away from centralized platforms that dictate how and for how long they can access the media they consume. Self-hosting is slowly but surely becoming a hot recommendation for many more than just very hands-on people.
This project is a great example of enabling users to set up a self-hosted reliable way to consume their podcasts, but the spotty discovery of ones that aren't RSS-based is something that's a bit of an itch.
All that being said, ABS is a fantastic software and I'm VERY glad it's part of my self-hosted stack. You all are doing great work and I'm extremely grateful for that.
@nichwall commented on GitHub (Feb 23, 2026):
There are over 1000 open issues (and nearly 150 open PRs) between the server and app repositories, so it's more of a "we forgot to close it until we got an e-mail about a new comment". We all have day jobs and this is a hobby/passion project we work on in our free time so it's relatively easy to drop things (not trying to make an excuse for it, but that's the nature of a project like this).
Again, at the end of the day this is a local file server. How users get their media onto it is up to them, whether that is an audiobook or podcast. Dedicated podcatcher services will provide a lot more functionality and customization than will likely ever be included as part of the ABS server, especially for things that do not fit the traditional definition of a podcast.
I'm glad it's worked well for you. :)