# RSS Feed Reader & Parser – RSS, Atom and JSON Feed to JSON (`chris_elder/rss-feed-reader`) Actor

Turn RSS, Atom and JSON Feed sources into one normalised dataset (title, link, date, author, summary, content, enclosures). Auto-discovers feeds from a homepage. Only-new-items mode for schedules. $0.50 per 1,000 items ($1 from 26 Oct); failed and filtered items are free.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/chris_elder/rss-feed-reader.md
- **Developed by:** [Chris Elder](https://apify.com/chris_elder) (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

from $0.30 / 1,000 feed items

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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 & Parser – RSS, Atom and JSON Feed to JSON, CSV or Excel

**RSS Feed Reader** turns any number of **RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 (RDF), Atom and JSON Feed** sources into one clean, normalised dataset: **title, link, publish date (ISO 8601), author, categories, summary, image, full content and podcast enclosures**. Give it feed URLs – or just a **website or blog homepage** and it **auto-discovers** the feed for you.

Turn on **Only new items** and schedule it: each run returns only items you haven't seen before – the simplest way to build news alerts, content monitoring, Slack/Teams notifications or an AI news digest.

### What can this RSS reader do?

- 📰 **Every feed format** – RSS 0.9x/1.0/2.0, Atom 1.0, JSON Feed 1.0/1.1, CDATA, HTML entities, odd date formats
- 🔎 **Feed autodiscovery** – paste `https://blog.example.com` and it finds `<link rel="alternate">` feeds or common paths (`/feed`, `/rss.xml`, `/atom.xml`, `/index.xml`, `/feed.json`; robots.txt respected for guesses)
- 🔔 **Only new items since the last run** – remembers item IDs per feed, ideal for schedules and webhooks
- 📅 **Date filters** – `publishedAfter` or "last N days"
- 🏷️ **Keyword filter** – keep items mentioning any of your keywords in title, summary, content or categories
- 🎙️ **Podcasts & media** – enclosures (MP3/MP4 URL, type, size), iTunes duration/episode/season, Media RSS thumbnails
- 🧹 **Normalised & de-duplicated** – one schema for all formats, plain-text summaries, duplicate links removed across feeds
- 🛡️ **Polite** – one request at a time per site with a delay, honest User-Agent, retries with back-off, Retry-After honoured
- 💸 **Pay per item** – failed feeds, filtered, duplicate and already-seen items are free

### Who uses it?

- **PR, comms & marketing teams** – monitor news sites, competitors' blogs and press-release feeds
- **Developers & data teams** – a single API that normalises hundreds of feeds into JSON for apps, dashboards and data warehouses
- **AI builders** – feed fresh articles into RAG pipelines, summarisation agents and daily digests (MCP-ready)
- **Investors & analysts** – watch regulator, government and company newsroom feeds
- **Podcasters & media** – catalogue episodes and enclosures across shows

### How much does it cost?

**$0.50 per 1,000 feed items** ($0.0005 per item; cheaper on Silver/Gold plans) plus $0.0005 per run. Only items actually returned are charged.

**From 26 Oct 2026:** $1 per 1,000 feed items ($0.001 per item; Silver $0.0008, Gold+ $0.0006). The $0.0005 per-run start fee is unchanged.

| Job | Price |
|---|---|
| 20 feeds × 20 new items daily (≈12,000 items/month) | ~$6/month |
| One-off export of 50 feeds × 100 items | ~$2.50 |
| Hourly check of 10 feeds, only new items | usually cents per day |
| 20 feeds × 20 new items daily, from 26 Oct 2026 | ~$12/month |

Use **Max items per feed** or **Max cost per run** to cap spending. Apify Free plan users get $5 of monthly credit.

### How to use it

1. Click **Try for free**.
2. Add feed URLs or website URLs.
3. Optional: set **Max item age**, **Keywords**, **Include full content** and **Only new items**.
4. Click **Start**, then download JSON/CSV/Excel, or connect a webhook, Slack, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n. For monitoring, add a **Schedule** (e.g. hourly) with **Only new items** switched on.

#### Input example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    { "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml" },
    { "url": "https://www.gov.uk/search/news-and-communications.atom" },
    { "url": "https://blog.apify.com" }
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 50,
  "maxAgeDays": 7,
  "keywords": ["AI", "regulation"],
  "onlyNewItems": true
}
```

#### Output example

```json
{
  "feedUrl": "https://blog.apify.com/rss/",
  "feedTitle": "Apify Blog",
  "feedLink": "https://blog.apify.com/",
  "feedType": "rss 2.0",
  "feedLanguage": "en",
  "title": "Getting data for training AI",
  "link": "https://blog.apify.com/ai-training-data/",
  "guid": "68e2…",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-06T08:23:00.000Z",
  "updatedAt": null,
  "author": "Egop Gogo-Job",
  "categories": ["AI", "Data processing and analysis"],
  "summary": "Six ways to collect data for training AI models, plus the problems and benefits of each method.",
  "imageUrl": "https://storage.ghost.io/…/6-ways-to-get-training-data-for-ai.png",
  "enclosures": [],
  "itemId": "3f1c2a9b7d0e4c11",
  "inputUrl": "https://blog.apify.com",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-09T07:00:00.000Z"
}
```

Feeds that fail (404, HTML page without a feed, invalid XML) are listed in the `RUN_SUMMARY` record with the reason, and cost nothing.

📊 **Want these results in Google Sheets?** Send them straight to a Sheet with [Google Sheets Sync](https://apify.com/chris_elder/google-sheets-sync) – run it after this Actor, or add it on this Actor's **Integrations** tab so every run exports automatically.

### FAQ

**How does "Only new items" work?** Item IDs (from guid/id/link) are stored per feed in a named key-value store `rss-feed-reader-state` in your account. Next run, known items are skipped. Use a different **Monitoring state name** for separate schedules. Items not returned because of the per-feed cap are *not* marked as seen.

**Can I get the full article text?** If the feed includes the full body (`content:encoded`, Atom `content`, JSON `content_html`), switch on **Include full content**. This Actor does not crawl article pages.

**Is it legal?** RSS/Atom feeds are published by sites specifically for automated reading and syndication. The Actor reads only the feeds (and one homepage request for discovery), politely. Respect each publisher's copyright when you republish content. Author e-mail addresses are stripped; only bylines are kept.

**Does it work with Google News / Reddit / YouTube feeds?** It parses any standard feed, but check those services' terms before automating access – this Actor is meant for publishers that offer feeds for syndication.

Questions or a feed that doesn't parse? Open an issue on the **Issues** tab with the feed URL.

# Actor input Schema

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

RSS, Atom or JSON Feed URLs – or any website/blog homepage: its feeds are discovered automatically from <link rel="alternate"> tags and common paths (/feed, /rss.xml, /atom.xml…).

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

Newest items first. Caps how many items are returned (and charged) per feed.

## `onlyNewItems` (type: `boolean`):

Remembers item IDs between runs (in the key-value store 'rss-feed-reader-state') and returns only items you have not received before. Perfect for scheduled monitoring, Slack/email alerts and Zapier/Make flows.

## `stateKey` (type: `string`):

Use different names to keep separate 'seen items' memories for different schedules or tasks.

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

Keep items published on/after this date (YYYY-MM-DD). Items without a date are dropped when this is set.

## `maxAgeDays` (type: `integer`):

Keep only items from the last N days. Leave empty for no limit.

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

Keep only items whose title, summary, content or categories contain at least one of these words (case-insensitive).

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

Add the full item body as HTML and plain text when the feed provides it (content:encoded / Atom content / JSON content_html).

## `summaryMaxLength` (type: `integer`):

Plain-text summary is cut at a word boundary. 0 = no limit.

## `deduplicate` (type: `boolean`):

Drop items whose link was already returned from another feed in this run (charged once).

## `requestDelayMs` (type: `integer`):

Politeness delay per host.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://blog.apify.com"
    }
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 100,
  "onlyNewItems": false,
  "stateKey": "default",
  "keywords": [],
  "includeContent": false,
  "summaryMaxLength": 500,
  "deduplicate": true,
  "requestDelayMs": 1000
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

## `summary` (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": [
        {
            "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
        },
        {
            "url": "https://blog.apify.com"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("chris_elder/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": [
        { "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml" },
        { "url": "https://blog.apify.com" },
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("chris_elder/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": [
    {
      "url": "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://blog.apify.com"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call chris_elder/rss-feed-reader --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,chris_elder/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/6PZkfXf6EtitMgcSp/builds/vgqX61dOCCHGicYKF/openapi.json