Getting Started with RSS Feeds: A Beginner's Guide

For a long time I had this routine: open browser, check tech blog, check news site, check forum, check another blog, find nothing new, repeat in two hours. Anyone who’s ever been into a niche corner of the internet probably knows the feeling - the constant, low-key checking, just in case.

A friend asked me one day why I wasn’t just using RSS. I told him I figured RSS had quietly died sometime around 2010. He laughed and pointed out that it never actually did. It just stopped being trendy.

Two weeks of using it later, I was a convert. Here’s the short version of what RSS is and how to actually get started without overcomplicating it.

What RSS actually is

RSS is just a way for websites to publish a list of their latest content in a machine-readable format. When a site updates, the list updates. An “RSS reader” is an app that checks all the lists you subscribe to and shows you what’s new.

That’s it. No algorithm. No “for you” page. No ads (unless the site puts them in their feed, which is rare). Just chronological, raw “here’s what’s new on the sites I care about.”

It’s the same idea as email newsletters, but instead of cluttering your inbox, everything lands in one place that’s designed for reading.

Why it’s worth bothering with

Three things changed for me once I switched:

I stopped hunting for content. Instead of visiting ten sites to see if anything was new, I open one app and see exactly what’s new across all of them. The hunting time goes to zero.

I stopped missing things. Algorithms decide what they want you to see. RSS shows you everything from sources you chose. If a blog you love only posts once every three months, you’ll still see that post - it won’t be buried.

My social media use went down. A lot of what I was doing on Twitter and Reddit was just trying to keep up with stuff. RSS does that better, faster, and without the dopamine slot machine.

Pick a reader (don’t overthink this)

There are dozens of RSS readers. Most are fine. I use Inoreader - the free tier gives you 150 feeds, which sounds tight but is actually way more than most people use. Most realistic personal setups end up around 20-30.

Some others worth knowing about: Feedly (clean, popular), NetNewsWire (Mac/iOS, free, open source), Reeder (paid, gorgeous interface). Try whichever - they all do the same core job. You can export and switch readers anytime, so the choice isn’t permanent.

Sign up, ignore most of the menus for now, and let’s add some feeds.

Finding feeds for sites you read

This is the part that trips people up. RSS used to be advertised everywhere; now most sites hide it. A few ways I find them:

Look for an RSS icon. Usually in the footer, sometimes the sidebar, sometimes a “Subscribe” link.

Try /feed at the end of the URL. This works for almost every WordPress site - and WordPress runs about 40% of the web.

Just paste the homepage URL into your reader. Inoreader and most modern readers will auto-discover the feed for you.

Worst case, Google it. Search “site name RSS feed” - someone has usually already figured it out.

Organizing without going overboard

The classic beginner mistake is dumping every feed into one giant list, and the second mistake is the opposite - building an elaborate folder hierarchy with twelve nested categories.

What works for me is three folders:

• Daily - sites I want to check every morning. News, the one or two tech blogs I genuinely care about.
• Weekly - long reads, newsletters, blogs that post occasionally.
• Fun - comics, hobby blogs, design inspiration, the wind-down stuff.

That’s it. If you can’t decide which folder something goes in, just pick one. You can move it later.

A reading rhythm that doesn’t burn you out

The other beginner trap is subscribing to everything you’ve ever read. You’ll end up with 300 unread items every morning and quit RSS within a week.

A couple of rules I follow now:

If I skip a feed three times in a row, I unsubscribe. No guilt. Life’s short.

“Mark all as read” is a feature, not a failure. If I’ve been away for a few days and there are 200 unread posts waiting, I don’t catch up - I just clear it and start fresh. Whatever I missed wasn’t going to change my life.

Daily folder with morning coffee. Weekly folder on Sunday night. That’s the whole routine. Maybe fifteen minutes total.

A few things you might run into

“This site doesn’t seem to have RSS.” It probably does - just hidden. If you’ve really tried and there’s nothing, services like RSS Bridge or Kill the Newsletter can sometimes generate feeds from sites or newsletters that don’t expose one.

“I have too many unread items and I’m stressed.” Mark all as read. Seriously. The backlog isn’t going anywhere.

“I keep forgetting to check it.” Pin the tab. Put the app on your phone’s home screen where Instagram used to be. The trick is to swap a habit, not add one.

The quieter benefits I didn’t expect

RSS made me more intentional about what I read. When you have to actively choose to follow something, you stop accidentally absorbing every viral thread someone retweets at you.

I also started discovering smaller, weirder, better blogs. The kind of independent writing that algorithms don’t surface but other bloggers link to. RSS rewards that whole layer of the internet that social media mostly buries.

And there’s something satisfying - almost meditative - about clearing a feed to zero. Like finishing a small chore that actually makes your day a little better.

Try it for a week

RSS is not exciting. It will not get you likes. It’s older than most of the apps on your phone and looks like it.

But it works. It’s been quietly working for over twenty years. And while everyone else is trying to keep up with whatever new platform is supposed to fix our content overload, you can just… read what you wanted to read, in the order it was published, when you have time.

Start with five feeds. Three folders. One coffee. See how it feels.

If you try it, let me know what you ended up subscribing to - I’m always looking for new things to add to my own list.