RSS Subscriptions In Safari

With Yosemite and iOS 8 you can once again use RSS feeds. The left sidebar allows you to add the feed for a web site you are viewing. You can add many feeds and see an aggregated list of items from those feeds, as well as from social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This works both in Yosemite on the Mac and iOS 8 on the iPad.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. On today's episode let's look at using the new Subscription feature in Safari for both Yosemite and iOS 8.
Let's start by looking at Safari running on Yosemite on the Mac. Now previous to Mavericks, Mac OS 10.9, there was some RSS functionality built into Safari. This is completely different than that. 
This involves the sidebar here on the left which has three modes. The Bookmark mode, Reading List mode, and also this Shared Links mode or Subscription mode. 
So the way to use this is you can set up Social Accounts and there is my Twitter account. Actually that is signed up through System Preferences. Under Accounts there I can add Facebook linked in and various other things. Since I signed in with my Twitter account there it shows up here.
I can turn that on and I can see my Twitter feed there. I hit Subscriptions at the bottom to jump to this and I can turn it off.
Now there is also Subscribed Feeds and I have that Add Feed button here. So Add Feed works with RSS feeds. Let's start by going to a website. We'll go to my own website, MacMost.com, and there is RSS feed associated with this site. So when I click Add Feed I can see here it lists that RSS feed. I can select it, say Add Feed, and there it appears. I hit Done now and I can see actual items from that RSS feed right here.
Now I can also go to other websites. Let's go to CNN here which you think would have a RSS feed and it does. There it is, Top Stories. I can Add Feed there and now it is going to put CNN items here mixed in with the MacMost ones and there is a lot of really recent ones for CNN. If I go down far enough I will see the MacMost links in there as well.
Let's go back to look at Subscriptions. You can see I can easily remove them with the X button here.
Another way to add them here is to go to the Share button. So let's go to Reddit which has RSS feeds for each page and let's just go to the Apple one. I can use this Share button here and I can say Add to Shared Links. You can see it is the same symbol here, that Add symbol. Sure enough if I add it it will appear here. So there is just two separate ways to get to it. So I hit Done and now I will see CNN mixed in with Reddit here.
Now if I want to look at one of these, of course, all I need to do is click on it. So it is just really easy and is kind of an aggregated RSS feed here on the left.
So now let's look at my iPad. Using Safari in iOS 8 I have the same functionality. I tap a very similar button at the upper left there to bring up the Bookmarks, Reading List, and Shared Links here. This would show me anything that I have under Subscriptions. You can see I have Twitter accounts there too. I switch those off so you don't see them there and go to Subscribed Feeds. 
I can do the same thing here. Go to a website with a feed and I can tap the Add Current Site button you can see at the bottom left there. Now you can see it added MacMost. Now when I say back, hit the Back button at the upper left, I can see that stuff there. I can subscribe to multiple feeds. It works exactly the same. There is even the little Share button and I can Add to Shared Links you can see right there and go that way.
So Safari works very similarly between iOS and Mac now with Yosemite and iOS 8 in giving you these subscriptions, these RSS feeds, on the left.

Comments: 171 Responses to “RSS Subscriptions In Safari”

Joel Anderson

10 years ago

Do you think this feature is complete? I was unable to figure out how to get items to drop off the list once they are read.

Gary Rosenzweig

Items don't drop off from the list any more than they drop of of a new web site once you have read it. That's not how this feature works.

Serdar Guvenal

Great topic. Quick question. Is there anyway to limit maximum number, entry per subscription. For example show me the latest 10 feeds from Macmost both for mac and ipad ios 8. Please keep up the excellent work.

There are no settings or customization. But there are many third-party apps that are multi-features RSS readers if that is what you are looking for.

Paul Lancaster

I have twitter in my RSS feeds how do I add Facebook?

Go to System Preferences, Internet Accounts.

Beth Buch

I downloaded IOS 8 but don't see the RSS feed option in the sidebar, only Bookmarks and Reading List. Is there a way I can add it?

Perhaps it is hidden if you have absolutely no subscriptions (not signed into Twitter, Facebook, etc and no RSS feeds). Try adding one using the share button like I show in the video. See if that makes it appear.

Comments Closed.

RSS Subscriptions In Safari

Comments: 171 Responses to “RSS Subscriptions In Safari”

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