How to Convert Any Article to a Podcast in 30 Seconds

You saved that article three days ago. It's still sitting in a tab, sandwiched between eleven others you also planned to read "later." Sound familiar?

The problem isn't motivation. It's medium. Reading demands your eyes, your hands, and a screen. But your day is full of moments where your ears are free — commuting, cooking, walking the dog, folding laundry.

What if you could convert that article to a podcast and listen to it during any of those moments? With Heark, you can. Here's exactly how.

Why Audio Content Consumption Is Growing

Podcast listenership has crossed 500 million globally, and the number keeps climbing. The reason is simple: audio fits into the cracks of a busy day where text doesn't.

A 2024 report from Edison Research found that 79% of podcast listeners tune in while doing something else — commuting, exercising, or doing housework. That's time that would otherwise be wasted from a learning perspective.

But here's the gap: not everything worth consuming comes as a podcast. Your favorite Substack newsletter, that Medium deep-dive your colleague shared, the research summary you bookmarked last week — all text-only.

Heark bridges that gap. It takes any article URL and converts it into a natural-sounding podcast episode you can listen to anywhere.

How to Convert an Article to a Podcast with Heark

The whole process takes three steps and about 30 seconds.

Step 1: Paste Your Article URL

Head to hearkapp.com and sign up for a free account. Once you're in, navigate to the Convert page.

You'll see two modes at the top: Paste URL and Paste Text. For converting articles, select Paste URL and drop in the link to any article — Medium, Substack, WordPress, news sites, or most blogs.

Click Extract Content. Heark scrapes the article, strips out navigation bars, ads, and sidebars, and pulls the clean text along with the title and word count.

Tip: You can also use Paste Text mode if you want to convert a PDF excerpt, an email, or any block of text that doesn't have a public URL.

Step 2: Choose Your Voice

Next, pick the voice you want narrating your article. Heark offers 12 voices across two tiers:

Standard voices (free):

Sarah — Friendly and approachable
Emily — Calm and measured
Charlotte — British accent, great for longform reads
James — Clear and professional
Michael — News anchor-style delivery
David — Warm and conversational

Premium voices (Pro plan): Six additional voices powered by ElevenLabs, including podcast-style narrators and storytelling voices. Free users get one premium generation per month to try them out.

Pick whichever voice matches the tone of your content. Technical article? James or Michael. Newsletter essay? Sarah or David. Something literary? Charlotte.

Step 3: Select Duration and Convert

Based on your article's word count, Heark offers up to three duration options:

2 min — Quick summaries, short posts (~150 words min)
5 min — Newsletter recaps, standard articles (~400 words min)
10 min — Deep dives, long-form features (~800 words min)

Heark automatically recommends the best fit, but you can adjust. Once you've chosen, hit Convert to Podcast.

Within seconds, Heark generates a podcast-style script from the article (not just raw text-to-speech) and produces your audio. You'll land on the article page where your episode starts playing as soon as it's ready.

That's it. URL in, podcast out.

Tips for Choosing the Right Episode Length

The "right" length depends on how you plan to listen.

Pick 2 minutes when:

You just want the key takeaways
You're converting several short posts to batch-listen
The original article is under 500 words

Pick 5 minutes when:

You want a solid overview without losing detail
You're listening during a quick walk or while cooking
The article is a typical newsletter or blog post (800-1,500 words)

Pick 10 minutes when:

You want the full picture — context, nuance, examples
You have a longer commute or workout session
The original piece is a 2,000+ word feature or deep-dive

A good rule of thumb: if you'd skim the article on screen, go with 2 or 5 minutes. If you'd read every word, go with 10.

How to Share Your Converted Podcast

Found an article that your team or a friend would benefit from hearing? Heark makes sharing simple.

Open any article in your Heark library
Click the Share button
Click Generate Link — Heark creates a unique shareable URL
Copy the link and send it however you like (Slack, text, email)

When someone opens your link, they'll see a preview of the article — title, duration, voice used, and an excerpt. They can sign in to listen to the full episode.

This is especially useful for teams. Instead of saying "you should read this article," you can say "here, listen to this on your commute." The friction drops to zero.

Start Listening to Your Reading List

Every article sitting unread in your bookmarks is information you're not using. Converting it to audio takes 30 seconds and turns dead time into learning time.

Heark's free plan gives you 3 conversions per day with 6 natural-sounding voices — enough to clear through your backlog one commute at a time.

Try Heark free at hearkapp.com and convert your first article right now. That tab you've been ignoring? It's about to become your next podcast episode.