Your Podcast Is Listed Twice on Apple or Spotify? How to Merge the Listings

Your show appears twice on Apple or Spotify and your audience is split. Here is which listing to keep, who can remove the duplicate, and how to merge safely.

By Don karlos Fru · Published 2026-10-26

It usually surfaces in a listener's message: "I searched for your show and two of them came up, which one do I follow?" You check, and there it is. Your podcast is listed twice on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or both. One listing has your current episodes and most of your followers. The other is a ghost: old artwork, stale episodes, a handful of reviews stranded on a page nobody updates. Left alone, the split keeps costing you, because every new listener has a coin-flip chance of following the wrong copy.

QUICK ANSWER

Keep the listing that is connected to your current RSS feed and has the most followers and reviews, and get the other one removed by the platform, because only Apple and Spotify can delete a listing on their side. On Spotify, if the duplicate appeared when you claimed your show in Spotify for Creators, contact Spotify's podcast support and ask them to remove the duplicate claim listing. On Apple, raise the duplicate in Apple Podcasts Connect support. Never delete the feed or the listing your audience actually follows, and put a permanent redirect on any old feed first, so followers and apps migrate to the copy you keep.

Why duplicates happen

Directories do not host your show; they index RSS feeds. A duplicate listing is almost always a second feed, or a second ingestion of a feed, treated as a separate show. The common causes:

You moved hosts and resubmitted. The old host's feed stayed live and indexed while the new feed was submitted as a fresh show, so the directory carries both.
You claimed the show in Spotify for Creators and a second listing appeared. RSS.com's support documentation describes exactly this failure: claiming a show can generate a duplicate listing, and the extra listing is not something you can delete yourself.
The same feed was submitted twice under slightly different details, sometimes years apart, sometimes by a former producer or network partner.
A directory re-ingested your feed from an aggregator while also holding your direct submission.

A podcaster working at a studio desk with a microphone, checking show listings on a laptop — Editorial image from this article.

Decide which listing survives before you ask for anything

Removal requests are one-way doors, so choose carefully. The listing to keep is the one that passes all three tests:

It is driven by your current RSS feed. Open the listing and check the newest episode. If the latest episode you published is there and updates arrive, that listing is wired to the feed you control.
It holds the larger audience. Compare follower/subscriber counts and review counts in Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Creators. Reviews and ratings cannot be transferred between listings, so the copy with your review history is worth protecting.
You control its claim. The survivor should be the listing claimed in your own Spotify for Creators and Apple Podcasts Connect accounts, not a partner's.

Daniel J. Lewis's long-running guide to fixing duplicate listings in Apple Podcasts and other apps makes the same core point: the fix is about consolidating onto the one listing fed by your real feed, then removing the extra, not about deleting and starting over. Starting over throws away the audience signals that make the surviving listing rank.

Removing the duplicate on Spotify

Confirm which listing is the claim duplicate. In Spotify for Creators, check which listing is attached to your account and which episodes each public listing shows.
Contact Spotify for Creators support. Per RSS.com's help documentation, if your show was duplicated after you added it in Spotify for Creators, only Spotify can remove the duplicate; the host cannot do it from their side. Give support both Spotify URLs and state clearly which one must survive.
Keep the listing with more followers if you have a choice. RSS.com's guidance for choosing between two live listings is to preserve the one with the bigger existing audience, for the same review-and-follower reason as above.
Verify after removal. Search Spotify as a logged-out listener would, and confirm exactly one listing remains and it shows your latest episode.

Removing the duplicate on Apple Podcasts

Identify the feed behind each listing in Apple Podcasts Connect. The listing attached to your current feed is the survivor.
If the duplicate is fed by an old host feed you still control, set a permanent (301) redirect on that old feed to your current feed, or use Apple's feed-URL change process, so apps and listeners migrate instead of stranding.
If you no longer control the old feed, contact Apple Podcasts support from Podcasts Connect and request removal of the duplicate listing, supplying both show URLs and the feed URL of the listing that should remain.
Do not delete your show in Podcasts Connect to "start clean." That removes the good listing's history too, and a removal is a different, longer problem (see our guide to getting reinstated after a removal).

Protect your audience during the merge

Redirect before removal. A 301 redirect on the dying feed moves subscribed apps to the surviving feed quietly; a listing that simply vanishes leaves those followers staring at a dead show.
Announce it in an episode. One short in-feed note telling listeners there were two listings and which one is official costs you nothing and catches the people a redirect misses.
Fix your links everywhere. Your website, social bios, and show notes should point only at the surviving listing's URLs. Old smart links keep feeding the duplicate.
Check the other directories afterwards. Duplicates breed: if Apple and Spotify had two, Amazon Music, iHeart and the Podcast Index may as well. The check is the same one you would run when an episode is not showing up: search your exact title and count the listings.

Prevent the sequel

One show, one feed, forever. When you change hosts, migrate the feed with a redirect and update the feed URL in each directory instead of submitting a new show. When you claim a show on a new platform tool, check the public listing count a week later. And keep a simple record of your canonical links (Apple URL, Spotify URL, feed URL) in one document, so a future producer or partner never "helpfully" resubmits you.

A split audience is the quiet tax duplicates charge every week, and it compounds: half your new reviews land on a page you will eventually delete. The fix takes one support ticket per platform and an hour of link hygiene. And while you are consolidating, give listeners one place that is entirely yours: on PodSubs you can claim your show and turn listeners into email subscribers, so whatever the directories do with your listings, your line to your audience never splits in two.

Frequently asked questions

Can I merge two podcast listings myself?

No. There is no merge button on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You choose the listing connected to your current feed with the most followers and reviews, then ask the platform to remove the other one. On Spotify, RSS.com's documentation confirms only Spotify can remove a duplicate created when claiming a show in Spotify for Creators.

Which duplicate listing should I keep?

Keep the one driven by your current RSS feed, with the larger follower count and your review history, claimed in your own accounts. Reviews and ratings cannot be transferred, so the listing holding them is the one worth protecting.

Will I lose subscribers when the duplicate is removed?

Not if you prepare. Put a permanent 301 redirect on the old feed before removal so subscribed apps migrate to the surviving feed, announce the change in one episode, and update every link you control to point at the surviving listing.

Why did my podcast get duplicated after I claimed it on Spotify?

Claiming a show in Spotify for Creators can generate a second listing alongside the one Spotify already indexed from your feed. It is a known pattern documented by hosting-company support pages, and the fix is a support request to Spotify asking them to remove the claim duplicate.

How long does duplicate removal take?

It depends on the platform's support queue, and neither Apple nor Spotify publishes a guaranteed timeframe. Supply both listing URLs and the surviving feed URL in your first message; complete requests avoid the back-and-forth that stretches these tickets out.