Features

Features

boxlore is built around three ideas. It's curious: it helps you find podcasts by idea, not just by name. It's calm: no app ads, nothing behind a paywall, and it gets out of the way while you listen. And it's yours: whatever you want it to be.

This page lists what the app does and where the code lives. Recommendations come first, because they're what sets boxlore apart.

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1. Recommendations and discovery

• Hybrid recommendations boxlore's private API finds candidate shows and episodes by semantic matching, seeded by what you've recently listened to, liked or finished. The phone then re-ranks them for your habits with an on-device model in :core:ranking. Recommendation & Ranking explains both stages.
• Where they appear Home (recommendations, Daily Mix, "Because you like", curated rows for the time of day, and a Discover grid of trending shows), Explore's For You tab, and the Smart Queue.
• Search by idea Explore's "Ask anything" search finds shows and episodes about an idea, not only by title. Matching runs on the server; the top episode match is shown as a featured card.
• Lore Lore is a deck of question cards with its own place in the navigation bar. Each card links to an episode that explores the question. Swipe to move on, or play to listen. What you play and skip teaches your taste. In code, Lore is still Learn (LearnViewModel, route learn).
• The boxlore brief An optional daily news episode, with stories and their sources. Editions: Global, India, US and UK.
• Onboarding that asks first "Find shows for me" asks a few quick questions about your taste and suggests shows to start with. You can also search, pick genres, or import a library.

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2. Playback

Playback runs in BoxLorePlaybackService, a Media3 service.

• Speed: 0.5× to 3.0× in preset steps.
• Seek buttons: separate "Seek backward" and "Seek forward" amounts, from 5 to 120 seconds. Optional seek buttons on the miniplayer.
• Intro and outro skipping: "Skip beginning" and "Skip ending" under automatic episode trimming, with per-show overrides.
• Sleep timer: including stop at the end of the episode.
• Same-show queue: an option to keep the queue to the show you're playing.
• Video podcasts: video episodes play in the player, with a portrait and landscape toggle.
• Audio focus: handled by Media3, so other apps' sounds and calls pause or lower playback as Android expects.

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3. Podcasting 2.0

• Chapters: JSON chapters with titles and artwork, shown as marks on the seek bar and as a list.
• Chapters from show notes: when a feed has no chapter data, boxlore reads timestamps from the show notes (for example 00:14:32 Topic) and turns them into chapters.
• Transcripts: SRT and VTT transcripts scroll with playback. Tap a line to jump to it.
• Offline: downloading an episode also saves its chapters and transcript.
• Funding: a show's funding links appear as a "Support" chip on its page.

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4. Library: folders, tags and icons

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Library (3 columns)                           │
│                                               │
│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Shelf folder (3×1)                        │ │
│ │ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐   │ │
│ │ │Show A │ │Show B │ │Show C │ │  +4   │   │ │
│ │ └───────┘ └───────┘ └───────┘ └───────┘   │ │
│ └───────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐     │
│ │ Compact   │ │ Show card │ │ Show card │     │
│ │ folder    │ │           │ │           │     │
│ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘     │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Folders Group the shows you follow into folders. Choose a size: Compact (1×1), Shelf (3×1), Panel (3×2) or Showcase (3×3). A compact folder can show a folder icon or a grid of covers.
• Tap a show inside a folder Shows inside a sized folder open directly, without opening the folder first.
• Overflow When a folder has more shows than slots, the last slot becomes a small collage with a +N count. Tapping it, or the folder title, opens the whole folder in a dialog.
• Auto-organize folders A switch that groups shows into genre folders and keeps doing so as you follow new shows. Folder sizes follow the number of shows.
• Your own order Reorder folders, the shows in a folder, and the shows outside folders.
• Your tags and icons Give any show you follow your own tag and one of 31 icons. Tags appear as filter chips at the top of your shows. They're cleared if you unfollow the show; shows you don't follow always use the publisher's details.

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5. Smart Queue and downloads

• Smart Queue Owned by BoxLorePlaybackService. When two or fewer items are left, it adds more, roughly in this order: the next episode of the same show, something to resume, new episodes from shows you follow, the API's recommendations and similar episodes, episodes like ones you liked, then trending. The phone orders the result and caps repeats per show.
• Auto-downloads New episodes of shows you choose can download automatically, with Wi-Fi, episode-count and auto-delete options. Optional background checks catch episodes when a notification is missed.
• Smart Downloads SmartDownloadWorker downloads episodes boxlore expects you to want, from shows you follow, recommendations and trending. Limits: maximum episodes (5, 10, 15 or 25), a storage limit (250 MB to 5 GB), Wi-Fi only and charging only. Turning Smart Downloads off removes its downloads (PurgeSmartDownloadsWorker).
• Played episodes "Auto-delete played episodes" cleans up downloads you've finished.
• Managing downloads Select several downloads at once to delete them.

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6. Make it yours

Change how boxlore looks; it works just as well either way. Settings live under Settings > Appearance, Playback and Library.

• Themes: boxlore classic, Pure, Material 3 (colours from your wallpaper), or Custom with your own colours.
• Artwork colours: "Use artwork colors" lets show and episode pages match their artwork. Turn it off to keep your theme everywhere.
• Navigation bar: Floating or Classic.
• Lettering: Crisp, Soft or Round.
• Seek, skip and queue: see Playback.
• Your library: folders, tags and icons, see Library.
• Any RSS feed: "Add podcast by RSS feed" (Settings > Library) adds a show by its feed URL, including private feed links. Feeds that need a separate username and password aren't supported.

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7. Android Auto, Cast and widgets

• Android Auto: browse Home (Resume, Up Next, What's New, Your Shows Mix), Library (Subscriptions, Liked Episodes, Listening History), Downloads and Discover. Playback can resume when the car reconnects.
• Google Cast: send playback to Chromecast and other Cast devices; the player in the app stays in sync.
• Home-screen widgets (:feature:widgets): Now Playing (full controls), Now Playing (compact), Playback Controls (seek), Playback Controls (next), Your Shows and New Episodes.

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8. Backup, sync and import

• Optional account: sign in to back up and sync your library across devices, with "Sync now" in Settings. boxlore works without one.
• Full backup: LibraryBackupManager exports a JSON backup (format version 6) with the shows you follow, your tags and icons, folders, order and pins, history and likes, settings, and ranking state. Restoring shows progress as it subscribes to each show. Details: Data & Storage Contracts.
• OPML: import and export your subscriptions to move between podcast apps.