RSS Feed Read

Read an RSS or Atom feed, such as a blog, news site or podcast, and get its articles as data.

Can use a RSS Feed Read connection — 

Optional: pick a saved connection in the Authentication field when the service needs one.

Create a connection →

What it does

RSS Feed Read downloads the feed at URL and turns it into one item: the feed’s own details (title, link, and others the feed provides) plus an items list with one entry per article. Each entry typically has title, link, pubDate, isoDate (the date in a standard format), content and contentSnippet (the content as plain text), depending on what the feed includes.

Authentication adds an Authorization header from a saved credential, for private feeds. Headers sends any extra request headers.

When to use it

• Watch a blog or news site and get notified of new articles.
• Send a daily list of headlines to Slack or by email.
• Feed new articles to an AI model to summarise or classify.

For a page without a feed, use Get Links from Link or Get HTML from Link.

Inputs and settings

Setting	Type	What it does
URL REQ(required)	Text	Security: Ensure the URL is from a trusted source. Avoid including sensitive data in URL parameters.
Authentication	Credential	The authentication to use to make the request.
Headers	Key-value pairs	The headers to send with the request.
Options	Group	The options to send with the request.
Options › Redirects	Group	The options to send with the request.
Options › Redirects › Max redirects	Number	The maximum number of redirects to follow. Default: 10
Options › Timeout (ms)	Number	Time in ms to wait for the server to send response headers (and start the response body) before aborting the request. Default: 10000
Options › Reject unauthorized	Toggle	Whether to reject unauthorized requests. Default: Off

• URL is the address of the feed itself (often ending in /feed, /rss or .xml), not of the website’s home page.
• Redirects are always followed. Max redirects and Reject unauthorized currently have no effect.

Outputs

• Output

Each output item has these fields:

Field	Type	What it holds
title	Text
link	Text
items	List of entries

Shape of an output item

{
  "title": "…",
  "link": "…",
  "items": []
}

The whole feed is a single item. To handle each article on its own, follow with Split Out on items.

Dependencies and credentials

• Authentication (connection): optional. See Create a connection.

Most public feeds need no credential. For a private feed, create a credential of the type the feed expects, such as basic auth or a bearer token. See Create a credential.

Example workflow

Get notified of new articles every hour:

1. Schedule trigger, every hour.
2. RSS Feed Read, URL https://blog.example.com/feed.
3. Split Out, Field To Split Out items, Output field name article.
4. Remove Duplicates, Compare Selected fields, Fields article.link, Also Compare Against Previous Runs on, so only new articles go on.
5. Browser Notification, Title {{ $input.article.title }}.

Common issues

• “HTTP error! status: 404” (or another number). The address is not a feed or no longer exists. Open it in your browser: a feed shows XML, not a web page.
• “Failed to parse RSS/Atom feed from …”. The address returned something that is not a valid feed, often the website’s HTML page. Look for the feed link on the site (an RSS icon or /feed).
• “Empty response body when fetching RSS feed from …”. The server answered with nothing. Try again later or check the address.
• “Request timeout while fetching RSS feed from …”. The server was too slow. Raise Timeout (ms) under Options.
• It works in the extension but fails in the web app. Many sites refuse feed requests sent from another website. Run the workflow from the extension.

Related nodes

• Split Out: one item per article.
• Remove Duplicates: keep only articles you have not seen.
• Get All Text from Link: read the full article behind each link.
• Http Request: read a JSON feed or API instead.