# RSS Feed Reader & Finder: RSS, Atom, JSON Feed & Podcasts (`best_apis/rss-feed-reader`) Actor

Read any RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed, or paste a website URL and the feed is found for you. Clean items with title, link, date, author, summary, image, categories and podcast audio. Date and keyword filters, dedupe. $0.30 per 1,000 items.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/best_apis/rss-feed-reader.md
- **Developed by:** [A Q](https://apify.com/best_apis) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Automation, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## RSS Feed Reader & Finder: RSS, Atom, JSON Feed and Podcasts

Read any **RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed** and get clean, structured items. You can also paste a plain **website, blog or podcast page URL**. The Actor finds the feed for you through `<link rel="alternate">` tags or common paths like `/feed` and `/rss.xml`.

Use it to monitor news, blogs, competitors, job boards, press releases, release notes and podcasts. You can also feed fresh content into AI agents, Slack, Google Sheets, n8n, Make or Zapier.

### Why this RSS reader

- **Every feed format.** RSS 0.9x, 1.0 (RDF) and 2.0, Atom 1.0, and JSON Feed 1.0 and 1.1. It handles any character encoding (UTF-8, ISO-8859-1, Windows-1251 and others).
- **Feed discovery.** Give it `theverge.com` and it reads `theverge.com/rss/index.xml`.
- **Clean output.** Dates are normalized to ISO 8601 and HTML is turned into plain-text summaries. Relative links become absolute URLs, and each item gets an image (from media:content, media:thumbnail, itunes:image, enclosure or the first `<img>`).
- **Podcast support.** Each episode includes the audio enclosure URL, MIME type, size and duration in seconds.
- **Filters.** Use `publishedAfter` (`"24 hours"`, `"7 days"` or `2026-01-01`), keywords, a per-feed cap and a total cap. Duplicates across feeds are removed.
- **Full content on request.** Turn on `includeContent` to add `contentHtml` and `contentText` when the feed carries the full article.
- **Fast and cheap.** It sends plain HTTP requests with no browser, reads 8 feeds in parallel, and runs at the default 256 MB.

### Pricing

Pay per event, with no subscription:

| | This Actor | Typical alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Per 1,000 items | **$0.30** | $1.15 – $10 |
| Per run start | $0.0005 | up to $0.035 |

Feeds that fail return no rows and cost nothing beyond the start fee. Set a spending limit and the run stops cleanly when it is reached.

### Input

```json
{
  "feedUrls": ["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml", "https://github.blog", "https://www.theverge.com"],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
  "publishedAfter": "7 days",
  "keywords": ["AI", "security"],
  "includeContent": false
}
```

### Output

```json
{
  "title": "YouTube might be testing hiding the dislike button",
  "link": "https://www.theverge.com/streaming/1015099/youtube-dislike-button-hide",
  "guid": "https://www.theverge.com/?p=1015099",
  "author": "Jay Peters",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-21T00:00:56.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-10-21T00:00:56.000Z",
  "summary": "YouTube appears to be testing hiding the dislike button on videos...",
  "categories": ["News", "Streaming", "YouTube"],
  "imageUrl": "https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/....jpg",
  "enclosure": null,
  "durationSecs": null,
  "feedTitle": "The Verge",
  "feedUrl": "https://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml",
  "siteUrl": "https://www.theverge.com/",
  "feedFormat": "atom",
  "feedLanguage": "en-US",
  "inputUrl": "https://www.theverge.com",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T05:19:08.794Z"
}
```

URLs that fail are listed in the `FAILURES` record of the run's key-value store, with the reason.

### Monitoring feeds on a schedule

Create an Apify **Schedule** (for example, every hour) with `publishedAfter: "1 hour"`. Each run then returns only new items. Connect the dataset to Slack, email, Google Sheets or a webhook.

### Use it from code or AI agents

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/best_apis~rss-feed-reader/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"feedUrls":["https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"],"maxItemsPerFeed":10}'
```

The Actor also works as a tool through the Apify MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor agents can read feeds.

### FAQ

**Can I paste a homepage instead of a feed URL?** Yes. Discovery is on by default. Turn on `allDiscoveredFeeds` to read every feed a page declares, such as category feeds.

**How many items does a feed return?** Whatever the publisher includes, usually the latest 10 to 100. Podcast feeds often carry the whole back catalogue.

**Is it legal?** Feeds are published so that software can read them. This Actor only reads public feeds and pages, and does not log in. Respect each publisher's terms when you reuse the content.

**Something broken?** Open an issue on the Issues tab. We usually reply within 24 hours.

# Actor input Schema

## `feedUrls` (type: `array`):

RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed URLs, or plain website/blog/podcast page URLs (the feed is discovered automatically).

## `maxItemsPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

Newest-first feeds return their latest items first.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap for the whole run (keeps cost predictable).

## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`):

Only items newer than this. A date (2026-01-01) or a relative time like "24 hours", "7 days", "2 weeks".

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Keep only items whose title, summary or categories contain at least one keyword (case-insensitive).

## `includeContent` (type: `boolean`):

Add the full article body the feed provides (contentHtml and contentText).

## `discoverFeeds` (type: `boolean`):

When a URL is a web page, find its feed via <link rel=alternate> tags or common paths like /feed and /rss.xml.

## `allDiscoveredFeeds` (type: `boolean`):

By default only the page's main feed is read. Enable to read all declared feeds (for example category feeds).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml",
    "https://github.blog"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
  "maxItems": 1000,
  "includeContent": false,
  "discoverFeeds": true,
  "allDiscoveredFeeds": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

No description

## `full` (type: `string`):

No description

## `failures` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "feedUrls": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml",
        "https://github.blog"
    ],
    "maxItemsPerFeed": 20
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("best_apis/rss-feed-reader").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "feedUrls": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml",
        "https://github.blog",
    ],
    "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("best_apis/rss-feed-reader").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml",
    "https://github.blog"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 20
}' |
apify call best_apis/rss-feed-reader --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,best_apis/rss-feed-reader"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/xoN1Jg23T4jXW4Mrb/builds/0xTOvgvTDiVTg3xm0/openapi.json