# RSS and Atom Feed Reader: Any Feed to JSON (`itayozer9/rss-feed-reader`) Actor

Read RSS, Atom, RDF and JSON Feed into clean JSON: title, link, ISO dates, summary, full content as Markdown, categories, image, enclosures. Paste a website and it finds the feed. Only-new mode for schedules. Pay per item.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/itayozer9/rss-feed-reader.md
- **Developed by:** [Itay Ozer](https://apify.com/itayozer9) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Automation, AI
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 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.

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 and Atom Feed Reader: Any Feed to JSON

Give it a list of RSS, Atom or JSON feeds, or just website addresses, and get every item back as clean, consistent JSON: title, link, publish date in ISO format, a short plain-text summary, the full content as Markdown, categories, image and podcast files.

It is built for news monitoring, content pipelines and AI agents: one schema for every feed format, only-new mode for scheduled runs, and **$1 per 1,000 items** with only Apify's standard $0.00005 per run on top. Feeds that cannot be read are free.

### What it does

- **Reads every common feed format**: RSS 2.0, RSS 0.9x, RSS 1.0 (RDF), Atom and JSON Feed, including feeds with legacy character sets, odd date formats and sloppy markup.
- **Finds the feed for you**: paste `https://www.nasa.gov/` instead of hunting for the feed address. The reader follows the feed link the site declares, or tries the usual addresses (`/feed`, `/rss.xml`, `/atom.xml`, `/feed.xml`, `/index.xml`).
- **Only new items**: turn on `onlyNew` and schedule the run. Each run returns only items it has not returned before, so you can send them straight to Slack, a spreadsheet or your database without duplicates.
- **AI-ready content**: full item content as Markdown with absolute links, or the original HTML, or plain text.
- **Polite**: plain HTTP, no proxy, no browser. It reads each site's `robots.txt` and skips feeds the site disallows for bots.

### Input

| Field | Required | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `feeds` | yes | | Feed or website addresses, up to 5,000 per run |
| `maxItemsPerFeed` | no | `50` | Newest items per feed, 1 to 10,000 |
| `onlyNew` | no | `false` | Return only items not returned by an earlier run |
| `maxAgeDays` | no | | Only items published in the last N days |
| `contentFormat` | no | `markdown` | `markdown`, `html`, `text` or `none` |
| `includeAuthor` | no | `false` | Add author names (email addresses are always removed) |

```json
{
    "feeds": [
        "https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/press_all.xml",
        "https://www.nasa.gov/"
    ],
    "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
    "onlyNew": true
}
```

### Output example

One dataset item per feed item. A real item from the input above, with the summary and content shortened:

```json
{
    "input": "https://www.nasa.gov/",
    "feedUrl": "https://www.nasa.gov/feed/",
    "feedTitle": "NASA",
    "feedFormat": "rss",
    "status": "ok",
    "error": null,
    "itemId": "https://www.nasa.gov/?post_type=press-release&p=1060823",
    "title": "NASA Releases MAX POWER Key Events for Media, Participants",
    "link": "https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-releases-max-power-key-events-for-media-participants/",
    "publishedAt": "2026-10-30T19:31:02.000Z",
    "updatedAt": null,
    "author": null,
    "summary": "... NASA has announced key events beginning Friday, Nov. 6, and running through Sunday, Nov. 8, hosted on and near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ...",
    "content": "[![Looking up, three white and black fighter jets fly in formation across a bright, blue sky.](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/grc-2026-c-06389large.jpg?w=1920)](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/grc-2026-c-06389large.jpg)\n\n...",
    "categories": ["General", "Aeronautics", "Kennedy Space Center"],
    "imageUrl": "https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/grc-2026-c-06389large.jpg?w=1920",
    "enclosures": [],
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-31T17:44:47.646Z"
}
```

- `itemId` is the feed's own id (guid), else the link, else a hash of title and date. It is stable across runs.
- `summary` is plain text of up to 1,000 characters. `content` is never cut.
- `enclosures` lists attached files such as podcast audio: `url`, `type` and `length` in bytes.
- Items come newest first when every item in the feed has a date; otherwise in feed order.
- Fields the feed does not have are `null`, never guessed.

A feed that cannot be read still gets one row (shown here without its empty fields), so you always know what happened. It is not charged:

```json
{
    "input": "https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss",
    "status": "blocked-by-robots",
    "error": "https://www.reddit.com/robots.txt disallows https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/.rss for crawlers, so it was skipped."
}
```

Other statuses: `http-error`, `not-a-feed`, `no-feed-found`, `feed-failed`, `invalid-feed`, `too-many-redirects`, `fetch-failed`, `invalid-url`, `failed` (an unexpected error).

### Pricing

| Event | Price | When |
|---|---|---|
| Feed item | $0.001 | Every item in your dataset |
| Actor start | $0.00005 | Once per run |

That is $1 per 1,000 items. The start charge is Apify's standard $0.00005, with no extra start fee on top, so reading one 20-item feed costs $0.02005. Error rows are free, and with `onlyNew` a run that finds nothing new costs only the $0.00005.

The reader checks your run's maximum charge before writing items and stops there, so a run never costs more than the limit you set.

### Use it on a schedule

1. Save your input as a task with `onlyNew` on.
2. Add a schedule (every hour, every 15 minutes, daily).
3. Connect the dataset to Slack, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or a webhook, or read it through the Apify API.

Each saved task has its own memory, so two tasks can watch the same feed for different purposes without hiding items from each other.

### Limits

- Up to 5,000 feeds per run and 10,000 items per feed.
- Feeds larger than 8 MB (a few long-running podcasts) are read up to their first 8 MB, which holds the newest episodes.
- An item with more than 300,000 characters of HTML comes back as plain text instead of Markdown.
- Dates are what the feed states. Dates in non-English formats come back as `null`.
- The content is whatever the feed carries. Many feeds only include a teaser; to get the full article, send the `link` values to a web page to text tool.

### FAQ

**Can I paste a normal website address?**
Yes. If the address is a web page, the reader looks for the feed the page links to, then tries the usual feed addresses.

**Why did a feed come back as `blocked-by-robots`?**
The site's `robots.txt` tells bots not to read that address, and this reader respects it. Some large sites (for example YouTube, Reddit and Google News) disallow their feeds for automated readers. These rows are free.

**How does only-new mode remember what I have seen?**
It keeps the ids of returned items in a key-value store named `rss-feed-reader-seen` in your own Apify account, one record per feed and task. Items are remembered while they stay in the feed and for 90 days after they leave it. The first run returns the newest items; later runs return only items published since.

**Am I charged for feeds that fail?**
No. Only items in your dataset are charged.

**Does it collect personal data?**
Author names are off by default, and email addresses are always removed, even from author fields. You get what the publisher put in the public feed and nothing else.

**Can AI agents use it?**
Yes. Every feed format comes out in the same flat schema with ISO dates and Markdown content, which is easy to pass to an LLM. The actor can be called from the Apify API or as a tool in Apify's MCP server.

**Do I need the right to use the content?**
Yes. Feeds are published to be read by feed readers, but the articles belong to their publishers. Check the publisher's terms before you republish their content.

# Actor input Schema

## `feeds` (type: `array`):

RSS, Atom, RDF or JSON Feed addresses, one per line. A plain website address works too: the reader finds the feed the site links to. Up to 5,000 per run.

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

Newest items to return from each feed. You pay per item returned.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

Return only items this reader has not returned before for the same feed. Turn it on for scheduled runs. The first run returns the newest items; later runs return only what was published since. Each saved task has its own memory.

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

Optional. Only items published in the last N days. Items with no date are left out when this is set.

## `contentFormat` (type: `string`):

How to return each item's full content: Markdown (best for AI and LLMs), the HTML exactly as the feed has it, plain text, or none (smaller output).

## `includeAuthor` (type: `boolean`):

Add the author or byline name to each item. Email addresses are always removed.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feeds": [
    "https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/press_all.xml",
    "https://www.nasa.gov/"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 50,
  "onlyNew": false,
  "contentFormat": "markdown",
  "includeAuthor": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One item per feed entry: title, link, dates, summary, full content, categories, image, enclosures. Feeds that could not be read get one row with status and error.

# 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 = {
    "feeds": [
        "https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/press_all.xml",
        "https://www.nasa.gov/"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("itayozer9/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 = { "feeds": [
        "https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/press_all.xml",
        "https://www.nasa.gov/",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("itayozer9/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 '{
  "feeds": [
    "https://www.federalreserve.gov/feeds/press_all.xml",
    "https://www.nasa.gov/"
  ]
}' |
apify call itayozer9/rss-feed-reader --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,itayozer9/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/lvGwb3ZErVb3ahAUu/builds/EA89vXve1tOW6Dj07/openapi.json