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• On This Day plays shows first heard on today's date, any year.
• Spotlight tiles appear above the stations on special days: a radio star's birthday (tap to hear what they're in), the anniversary of a show's very first broadcast (tap to hear it), or a new movie about a radio star.
• Genres (Adventure, Comedy, Detective and more) open to show a list of their shows. Tap Play all to mix the whole genre, or tap one show to hear just that show, in order.
• Looking around while you listen: if a show is playing and you tap a different station, its page opens first, with its history, Editor's Picks and episodes, while your show keeps playing in the bar at the bottom. Tap Play this station or an episode to switch, or Stations to go back. Tap the Editor's Picks or Episodes heading to open or fold that list. Big shows list their episodes by year, or by sponsor with the By sponsor button; tap a year or sponsor to see its episodes.
• New to Old-Time Radio? Start Here, near the top, plays 21 famous shows one after another, from The War of the Worlds to Gunsmoke, each with a line about why it's worth hearing.
• My Favorites, right under On This Day, holds the shows and episodes you've saved. It appears once you've saved something.
• Kids' Channel and Special Programs (American History, Documentary Radio, Faith and Inspiration, Movie Stars on Radio, Great Literature and the Holiday Channel) are folders near the top. Tap one to open it. In Movie Stars on Radio, Play all mixes Hollywood's radio shows, or pick a star from the list to hear everything they're in. In a star's list of shows, a small clapboard marks the radio versions of movies. Great Literature has a station for each author, from Shakespeare and Dickens to Hemingway and Bradbury: radio versions of their stories, plus a few dramas about their lives. In an author's list of shows, a small book marks the radio versions of their stories; the ones without a book are dramas about the author's life. The Kids' Channel opens with Editor's Picks: family classics like The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio and Snow White. Below them, the kids' shows are sorted by type (Cowboys and the Old West, Heroes and Crime Fighters, Space and the Future, Jungle, Sea and the Far North, Stories and Make-Believe, Growing Up); each has its own Play all, where the shows take turns. Faith and Inspiration mixes The Greatest Story Ever Told with Ranger Bill. Holiday stations in season also appear right under On This Day.

The four push-buttons under the dial, NBC, CBS, ABC and Mutual, tune in that network's evening, the way families heard it in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Every night of the week has its own lineup: on a Tuesday you hear Tuesday's shows, on a Sunday, Sunday's.

• It follows your clock. A button starts with the show that would be on at this time, then plays the rest of the evening in order. On weeknights the evening starts in the late afternoon with the kids' adventure serials, like Superman, Captain Midnight and Tom Mix. Before the evening starts, or after it's over, a button starts at the top of the evening.
• Real time slots. Each slot holds shows the network really aired at that time on that night, taken from Radio Mirror's program listings, 1946 to 1951. The recordings come from different years.
• The news, too. Between the shows you hear the newscasters the listings name in their own time slots, like Lowell Thomas, Gabriel Heatter, H. V. Kaltenborn, Edward R. Murrow and Walter Winchell on Sunday nights. Most of these recordings come from the war years, so the headlines are older than the evening around them. They're also in the News folder on the Stations page.
• The right show when there is one. If the app has an episode that first aired on today's date, that's the one you hear. Otherwise you hear an episode of the same show from any year, picked at random each day, and the slot is marked Somewhere in time with that episode's title and date.
• Change networks any time. Press another button to switch, like turning the dial to another station. The network you're hearing lights up.
• It changes every day and every week. Each night follows a different season's listings, with different episodes, and the season moves on every week.
• See the evening: All Shows on This Station lists the lineup in folders by the hour it aired, with each show's time; the hour on now starts open.

Some evenings are fuller than others. Where a network's shows from that night aren't in the app (Mutual on Saturday, for one), the button plays its next evening instead.

Type in the search box under Stations. You can look for a show, an episode title, a star, a writer, a sponsor, or even a TV show you like. Pick a star, writer or sponsor to make your own station of everything they're in. Your stations are listed under My Stations.

• Thumbs up plays more like it. Thumbs down skips the episode and keeps it off that station.
• Save show and Save episode put them in My Favorites on the Stations page.
• Share sends a link that opens that episode. On a phone it opens your share menu; on a computer it shows the link with Copy and Email buttons.
• Liner Notes tells about the show and the episode: who was in it, when it aired, and where the recording comes from. When a show offered a radio premium, like a secret compartment ring or a decoder, Liner Notes shows a photo of it from the Radio Days Museum collection, and the show's Editor's Picks list those episodes.
• Radio Premiums appears on the station of any show with premiums in the Radio Days Museum collection: a slide show of the rings, badges, decoders and other treasures from that show. You'll find it first in the show's Editor's Picks, and as its own button below the episode list. To browse every show's premiums without playing anything, tap Radio Premiums on the Stations page, under Magazine Rack. It moves on by itself every few seconds; use the arrows (or swipe) to go back and forth, and the middle button to pause.
• All Shows on This Station lists everything on the station and opens by itself when you pick a station. Big shows list their years, all folded; tap a year to see its episodes. Tap any episode to play it. Tap the button to fold the list away; it stays folded on every station until you open it again.
• Sleep timer (the clock button) stops the show after 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, or at the end of the episode playing now. The sound fades out over the last few seconds, and the show pauses at that spot, so tap play to pick up where you left off. Tap the clock again to change it or turn it off.
• Save for offline (the arrow button) keeps shows on your phone to play without the Internet, on a plane or out of range. Save the episode playing now, or the next 5 on the station. Save on Wi-Fi: a half-hour show can be up to about 28 MB. Saved shows are under Saved for Offline on the Stations page, and they play from your phone even when you're online. If you lose the signal while listening, the station skips to the next show you saved. To make room, open the button again and remove one episode or all of them. A few shows that play from the Radio Days Museum's site can't be saved.
• After you change stations, Back to takes you back to what you were hearing, at the same spot. Tap it again to keep going back, one station at a time, through the last ten.

Make any station play more of what you like and less of what you don't. Your choices are saved on your phone or computer.

• Thumbs up and down steer a station episode by episode. A thumbs-down episode won't play on that station again.
• Customize Your Stations on the Stations page lists every show with a checkbox, sorted by type; tap a type to open it. Untick the ones you don't want to hear and they won't play on the mixed stations. Tick all puts them all back.
• Not for me (next to Share) does the same for the show that's playing: takes it off every mixed station: the genres, On This Day, the holidays and the rest. It moves to Hidden Shows at the bottom of the Stations page; tap Bring back to return it. You can still play the show's own station any time.
• Choose Shows for This Station (on mixed stations, under All Shows on This Station) lists the station's shows. Untick any you'd rather not hear on that station; they still play everywhere else. Tick all puts them all back.

Tap Set the Mood on the Stations page to pick a station by feeling: Something Spooky, Edge of My Seat, Make Me Laugh, Feel-Good Radio, Whodunit Night, Out of This World or Ride 'Em Cowboy. Each one mixes shows from all over the dial.

While a show plays, tap More like this (next to Not for me) for a station of episodes most like the one you're hearing, from other shows as well as this one.

Both work from each episode's traits (its mood, the kind of story, where it's set and sometimes how it ends), which you can see in Liner Notes. The traits were picked from each episode's written summary, not from listening, so now and then one may be off. Episodes with no summary don't have traits yet.

Tap Magazine Rack on the Stations page to read radio magazines of the day: Radio Mirror, Radio Stars, Radio Guide, Movie and Radio Guide, Radio Digest and Screen and Radio Weekly, from the 1920s to 1962. Open a magazine, then a year, and tap a cover. The magazine opens over the app in the Internet Archive's reader, and the show keeps playing. Tap Back to close it.

In Liner Notes, On the newsstand shows the magazines from when that episode aired: the weekly guide for that week and the monthly issue for that month, when the Internet Archive has them. Some older months come as a bound volume of several issues; turn the pages to find the month you want.

The Radio Days Gazette is our free magazine, published four times a year. No. 1 is the Holiday Edition for October, November and December 2026: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas on the radio, how the sound effects were made, sponsors and premiums, puzzles, the funnies and more, with shows to hear in Radio Days on nearly every page.

Read the Radio Days Gazette (a PDF; it opens in a new tab, so the show keeps playing). You'll also find a Gazette link at the bottom of the Stations page, after Privacy.

Radio Days is free, with no ads. If you'd like to help keep it on the air, tap Support Radio Days on the Stations page (under Set the Mood) or at the bottom of any page. It opens PayPal's donation page in a new tab, so the show keeps playing. You can give with a PayPal account or a debit or credit card, once or monthly. Radio Days never sees your card or account details.

Support Radio Days

Tapping a button makes a soft click, and changing stations plays the sound of a radio dial being turned. Staying on the same station, or moving to the next episode, makes no tuning sound. To turn them off, tap Sound effects: On at the bottom of the Stations page; tap it again to turn them back on.

The green light above the dial is a magic eye, the tuning tube on radios of the 1930s and 40s. Its dark wedge opens wide while a station tunes in and closes to a thin line when the show comes in clear. When the show is paused, the eye dims.

Albert is the app's helper. Tap Ask Albert in the bottom-right corner of the screen, just below the round back-to-top button, and type a question. He's named for the robot in the X Minus One story "How To" (1956), and his greeting has a button to play it.

• What to ask: about a show, a star or an episode ("Which Suspense shows star Agnes Moorehead?"), what to hear next ("Something spooky for tonight"), or how the app works.
• Play buttons: when he names a show or an episode in Radio Days, a button under his answer plays it.
• Clear chat erases the conversation and starts over. The down arrow closes Albert; the show keeps playing, and he still has your conversation when you come back.
• Albert is an AI. He answers only from what's in Radio Days, says so when he doesn't know, and can still make mistakes.

Radio Days remembers your spot in every episode and the next chapter of every serial. When you come back, your last station is waiting at the bottom of the screen; tap play to go on.

• iPhone or iPad: open Radio Days in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: tap Add Radio Days to your home screen on the Stations page, or use Chrome's menu and choose Add to Home screen.

Shows keep playing when your phone is locked, and you can pause or skip from the lock screen.

The recordings stream from the Internet Archive. Now and then one of its storage servers stops answering. Radio Days tries again, then moves on to the next episode. If a whole station goes quiet, try again a little later or pick another station. You need an Internet connection to listen.