In this brief guide, we show you how to use the new episode search feature in the Apple Podcasts app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac running iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Believe it or not, before this year’s OS updates, there was no easy, direct way to search for a specific episode when on a particular podcast show. This left people who switched from Spotify to Apple Podcasts surprised to find that ‘search within a show’ wasn’t available.
Many shows like the popular Joe Rogan Experience have thousands of episodes, and before this update, you either had to use the app’s main search feature or scroll endlessly on the all episodes page to find the one you wanted to listen to.
Thankfully, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS Golden Gate finally add this basic yet needed feature. You can now go to a show’s all episodes page and use the search bar to quickly find what you want to listen to. This eliminates endless scrolling and definitely reduces the frustration of not being able to quickly find what you want to consume.
We’ll show you how to do this with step-by-step instructions. But first, here are some screenshots from iOS 26 vs. iOS 27 and macOS 26 Tahoe vs. macOS 27 Golden Gate to illustrate the difference.
- iOS 26 vs. iOS 27:
- macOS 26 Tahoe vs. macOS 27 Golden Gate:
Search for an episode of a show in Apple Podcasts
1) Update your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to iOS 27, iPadOS 27, or macOS Golden Gate.
2) Open the Podcasts app and go to a show’s page.
3) Tap “Episodes” at the top if it has an arrow (i.e., “Episodes >”). Or, scroll past the few recent episodes and tap the “See All” link.
4) You’ll see a search bar at the top. Type the episode name or number, and it should show up if it’s recent. If not, it will say “No results in recent episodes. Show All Results for your search term.” Tap the purple “Show All Results to do a full, deeper search, and this should bring up what you’re looking for.
Beyond the episode title, the app also searches the podcast description and transcription for your search term. So, for instance, I searched for the ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. It obviously showed the two where Mark was the guest and his name is in the episode title. It also searched his name in the transcriptions of other episodes and showed it on the search results pages, which is handy.
Here’s how episode searching looks in the macOS 27 Podcasts app:
One last thing to note: you won’t see the “See All” link on the podcast show page if it or its selected season has only a few episodes and they are all already there. While this isn’t a big issue for most shows, it may be for a few like Business Movers, which currently has 50 seasons, most of which have only one or a few episodes each. There is no See All button to list all episodes across all 50 seasons and search for them all. So you’ll have to tap to switch seasons and find the episode you want to listen to. Or try the main search button; it should find what you want.
What do you think of this little new feature?
Also, check out: What is Enhance Dialogue in Apple Podcasts and how to use it?