My RSS Setup in 2026
The reader, the feeds, and the workflow I actually use. Opinionated and practical.
I wrote about what RSS is and why it matters. This is the follow-up: what I actually use, what I subscribe to, and how I've structured it so I read things rather than accumulate them.
The reader: NetNewsWire
NetNewsWire on macOS and iOS. Free, open source, native.1 It's fast in a way that Electron-based readers aren't. Syncs via iCloud so my read state carries across devices without a separate account.
There are more powerful readers — Inoreader has better filtering and automation, Miniflux is the right choice if you want to self-host and own the backend. I've used both. For my workflow, NetNewsWire is enough and the friction is lower.
If you're on Android or want a web interface, NetNewsWire doesn't work. Feedly is the easiest starting point in that case.
How I've organized feeds
I use folders, but not many. The goal is to keep things simple enough that I actually open the reader rather than avoiding it because the unread count is overwhelming.
Tech — engineering blogs, developer tools, language/framework release notes. High volume. I skim this aggressively.
Thinking — longer essays, independent writers, people who publish infrequently but carefully. Lower volume. I read these properly.
News — a couple of outlets, topic-filtered. I deliberately keep this small. RSS is great for news but the rabbit hole is real.
Releases — GitHub release feeds for tools I use actively. These are pure signal: something I use shipped a new version.
That's it. Four folders. Everything else I've tried2 — more granular categorization, smart folders, rules — added overhead without improving what I actually read3.
Feeds worth subscribing to
Some I've found reliably worth reading4:
Engineering and tools:
- Dan Luu — careful empirical takes on software engineering; low frequency, always worth it
- Julia Evans — explains technical concepts in ways that actually land; consistently good
- Simon Willison's Weblog — high volume, broad AI/web/tools coverage; good for staying oriented
- Changelog — engineering podcast feed; I listen to maybe 20% of episodes but the titles are a useful signal
Independent writing:
- Maggie Appleton — design, technology, and how they shape thinking; essays worth taking seriously
- Robin Rendle — web design, typography, craft; short and precise
Releases:
- GitHub release feeds:
https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/releases.atom— just swap in any repo you care about. I have these for neovim, Ghostty, and a few other tools.
What I don't use RSS for
Twitter/X threads and social posts. The format doesn't translate. RSS gives you chronological full-text; most social content is designed around reactions and threading. I don't try to bridge these.
YouTube. YouTube has RSS feeds (https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id={id}) and they work, but I've found that the discovery mechanism for video is different. I watch YouTube in YouTube; I read RSS in my reader.
Newsletters. Some newsletters have RSS feeds; many don't. For the ones that don't, I use a separate email address. I try not to mix inbox and reader — different reading modes, different attention levels.
The discipline part
The hardest part of RSS isn't setup5. It's not letting the unread count become a to-do list.
A few things that help:
Mark all as read without guilt. If I haven't opened my reader in a few days and there are 300 unread items, I mark all read and start fresh. The articles aren't going anywhere; the good ones surface again through other means. Feeling behind is worse than missing something.
Prune regularly. Every few months I go through subscriptions and delete anything I've been consistently skipping. The signal-to-noise ratio of a feed degrades over time as publications change focus or increase volume. Unsubscribe early.
Read, then close. I try not to have the reader open as a background tab I check compulsively. I open it, read for 15-20 minutes, close it. RSS works best as a scheduled reading session, not a notification system.
OPML
All of this is exportable as OPML — a standard format for subscription lists6. Every serious reader supports it. Export from NetNewsWire, import to Miniflux, nothing is lost.
This is the portability promise of RSS that social platforms can't match. My subscription list isn't locked to a platform. It's a file.
Further reading
- What is RSS? — the explainer if you're new to RSS
- NetNewsWire — free, open source, Mac and iOS
- Miniflux — if you want to self-host
- Inoreader — if you want filtering and automation
Notes
- 1Context
NetNewsWire has a storied history. Created by Brent Simmons in 2002, it was the most popular desktop RSS reader on any platform by 2005 (per FeedBurner stats). It changed hands twice — NewsGator in 2005, Black Pixel in 2011 — before Simmons reacquired it in 2018 and re-released it as free, open-source software. NetNewsWire 7 for Mac shipped in January 2026.
— Brent Simmons / Ranchero Software
source → - 2Note
The four-folder approach maps well to a known pattern in information management: separating by urgency and depth. "Releases" is high-urgency/low-depth (act on it now). "Thinking" is low-urgency/high-depth (read carefully when ready). Keeping categories to four or fewer avoids the overhead of maintaining the system itself — a common failure mode where the organization becomes more work than the reading.
- 3Counter
Some power users take the opposite approach: hundreds of feeds, aggressive filtering rules, and keyword-based "must-read" tags. Inoreader users, for example, often build complex rule chains ("if title contains X and source is Y, star and push to Pocket"). The tradeoff: more signal extraction, but the system requires maintenance and the rules themselves can become a source of information anxiety.
source → - 4Note
Dan Luu, Julia Evans, and Simon Willison are consistently cited as some of the best technical blogs on the internet. Luu's posts are famously data-driven and contrarian; Evans makes complex topics accessible through zines and visual explanations; Willison publishes at extraordinary volume while maintaining quality — his blog is effectively a public research log for AI tooling and open data.
- 5Context
"Mark All as Read" is identified as both the cure and the cause of RSS burnout. It solves the immediate anxiety of a mounting unread count, but can create guilt about missed content. The solution most experienced RSS users converge on: treat your reader like a river, not a queue. You dip in, read what's there, and move on. You were never going to read all of it.
source → - 6Context
OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) was created by Dave Winer in 2000 — the same person behind RSS 2.0. It was originally the native file format for Radio UserLand's outliner app, but its most enduring use turned out to be RSS subscription portability. Winer has pushed for "subscribable OPML" — OPML files hosted at a URL that apps can follow for automatic updates, like an RSS feed of RSS feeds.
— Dave Winer
source →