Create a text file named podcast.txt in it, copy and paste this code in it, and save the file.

audacious2 "$1" &
cd ~/Downloads
wget --continue --no-check-certificate --retry-connrefused --waitretry=1 --read-timeout=20 --timeout=15 --tries 100  "$1"
audacious2 ${1##*/}

Now, open Terminal and paste the command bash podcast.txt URL-OF-THE-MP3. Replace URL-OF-THE-MP3 with the URL of the podcast. You don’t have to type out the entire line every time you want to download a podcast.

This bash script starts playing the podcast immediately. In the background, it also starts downloading the podcast. When the download is complete, it plays the downloaded podcast. Of course, the playback starts from the beginning again but you now have the ability to easily rewind or forward.

Some websites have switched to https but they have not installed an SSL certificate. For that reason, I have added the “–no-check-certificate” parameter to the wget command. Otherwise, wget might refuse to download the file. If you don’t like Audacious, then you could replace audacious2 with the name of your favourite music player. VLC has a command line interface called cvlc. I also recommend Exaile, which has a lot of plugins. Quark is an entirely command-line music player. I prefer Audacious2 as it has support for Winamp2 skins and presets.