Never miss another website update with RSS feeds for Apple Mac

Many websites are updated frequently, sometimes daily, and if you are missing out on great web articles, subscribe to RSS feeds on your Apple Mac to keep up with all the great new content.

RSS feeds is an old technology, but it is a brilliant way to keep up with all the new content published on your favorites websites and if you are not using it, you could be missing out on some first class web articles, news, help, tutorials and information. It is a source of new information and content on the web that makes it easy to follow your favorite topics and sites.

Many websites support RSS feeds. It is built into WordPress, which powers around 35 to 40% of the web. There are hundreds of millions of WordPress sites, but there are even more RSS feeds because any site can impliment it. Maybe half the web has RSS feeds. So why haven't you heard of them and why aren't you using them?

What is an RSS feed?

An RSS feed is basically a list of updates to a website, new articles, that are stored in a special file format. XML is used, which is a lot like HTML and tags are used to define the content like headings, text and links. Whenever a website is updated with a new article, a brief description consisting of the headline and a few introductory sentences is added to the site’s RSS feed. All you need to do is to access that XML file to see what is new on the site.

Viewing an RSS feed is quicker and easier than visiting a website and trying to work out or hunt around for what is new. Sometimes website updates are obvious, but not always, and it also takes time and effort to visit a bunch of websites and see what is new.

RSS feeds can be fetched automatically and a list of headings and descriptions is sufficient for you to decide whether the full article is worth reading. If it is, you can click a link and go straight to it on the website. However, you need an RSS feed reader to do this.

There are websites and applications that can be used to subscribe to RSS feeds and these show the latest updates whenever you access them. Some are free, some require payment. I will look at some free examples here.

Safari on the Apple Mac used to be able to store RSS feeds and it enabled you to browse the website updates in the sidebar. The feature was called Shared Links and if the Safari sidebar was opened they were on the @ tab. This feature was taken out of Safari a while ago and it no longer has the tab in the sidebar or the ability to read RSS feeds. Let's see how to view RSS feeds on your Mac.

Find RSS news feeds

Go to one of the websites you frequently visit, such as a news website or something that interests you like sport or hobbies.

Look around the home page for an RSS link or the orange button that is always used to indicate an RSS feed. Not all websites have RSS feeds, and some might collect them all onto a page dedicated to listing all the RSS feeds on the site. It varies a lot, so just explore the sites and use the search facility if it has one.

Not all sites have RSS feeds and sometimes they are hard to find, but it gets easier with practise. Tip: Any website built with WordPress has an RSS feed. Add /feed or /rss to a website URL and often you will discover the feed. For example, rawinfopages.co.uk/feed is an RSS feed.

I found lots of Apple RSS feeds for example, at https://www.apple.com/rss/ (using the add /rss to the URL trick):

I tried a few of these and not all of them are maintained and one or two are abandoned. Some are still bang up to date and useful. Control+click an RSS feed or the button and copy the URL.

I found a small collection of RSS feeds at The Wall Street Journal.

And there are more feeds at The New York Times and this website's RSS feed is at www.rawinfopages.com/mac/rss.xml. In each case, Ctrl+click the icon or text and copy the URL to the clipboard.

Add feeds to LuckNews

What can you do with an RSS feed link? Add it to an RSS reader like LuckNews. This is a free app in the Mac App Store so go and download it. Run it and click the plus icon in the bottom left corner of the window to add a new RSS feed.

If you copied an RSS feed URL to the clipboard, it is automatically inserted. If you haven't, go and find one and paste it in.

After adding the URL, the feed can be named. One is suggested, but you can change it if you prefer.

Repeat this procedure and add more RSS feeds to the app. Each one adds a separate entry in the first coloumn and a list of the latest articles in the second column.

Using the app and seeing the latest articles on your favorite websites is easy. Just select a feed on the left and then select an article to see a brief summary. To read the whole article, click the heading or links in the description.

Add RSS feeds to Feedy

There are several RSS feed readers in the Mac App Store and Feedy is one example. Install the app and run it. Like LuckNews, down in the bottom left corner of the app window is a plus button to add an RSS feed. Paste in the RSS feed URL copied from a web page.

After adding a feed you get to choose an icon for it. There is also a slider that enables the number of articles to be selected. Usually All is best, but you can limit the number if you prefer. Click the Subscribe button to finish.

This is how Feedy looks after adding a couple of tech news feeds (other topics are available, I just like tech stuff).

Ctrl+clicking an item in the news feed enables the full article to be opened in Safari. It is good and has an attractive display of articles.

Add RSS feeds to RSS Follower

Another great RSS reader for the Apple Mac is RSS Follower, which is a free app in the Mac App Store. You can only add three feeds for free and you must pay a registration fee. It is cheap though, so check it out.

It is unusual and it appears as a sidebar on the screen when the mouse is pushed to the left-hand edge. It is like the Dock and it automatically appears when needed and disappears afterwards. Open the side panel and the usual plus button is used to add RSS feeds. Articles are listed in date order or grouped by feed. Click an item in the sidebar and it opens in a window on the desktop. You can then click through to the full article.

This is a very nice looking app that has dark and light themes and it makes RSS feeds look fantastic. It supports full articles in feeds and shows text, images and even videos. It is brilliant and worth the small fee for the unlimited feeds upgrade.

There are other RSS feed readers in the Mac App Store that might be worth trying. They are great for keeping up with the latest news. I follow tech stories, but you can follow sport, arts, general news, and many more topics. You just have to find the RSS feed URL on the website you want to follow.