# Article Extractor — RSS & URLs to Markdown for RAG (`kadro/article-text-extractor`) Actor

Turn article URLs or RSS/Atom feeds into clean text or Markdown with title, date and word count. Respects robots.txt.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/kadro/article-text-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [Kadro Tools](https://apify.com/kadro) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$3.00 / 1,000 articles

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

## Article Text Extractor: RSS and URLs to Clean Markdown for RAG

Turn news articles and blog posts into clean Markdown or plain text, from a list of URLs or straight from RSS and Atom feeds, ready to feed a RAG pipeline, a search index or an LLM. It follows robots.txt and keeps headings, lists and tables.

### What you get

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `url` | The article address |
| `title` | Article title |
| `date` | Publication date when the page gives one |
| `sitename` | Site name |
| `language` | Detected language when available |
| `word_count` | Words in the extracted text |
| `text` | Clean text or Markdown (headings, lists, tables) |

Real example (13 Oct 2026, text shortened):

```json
{"url": "https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains", "title": "Example Domains", "date": "2026-09-27", "sitename": "iana.org", "language": null, "word_count": 118, "text": "# Example Domains\n\nA number of domains such as `example.com` and `example.org` are maintained for documentation purposes..."}
```

Authors' names are deliberately not extracted.

### How to use it in 3 steps

1. Add article URLs (up to 100) and/or RSS or Atom feed URLs (up to 10). From each feed the latest `maxPerFeed` entries (1 to 50) are extracted too.
2. Set `format` to `markdown` (best for RAG and LLMs) or `txt`.
3. Run it and read the clean text from the dataset.

### Pricing

**$3 per 1,000 articles** ($0.003 each). Example: a feed of 50 posts = $0.15. Blocked, empty or failed pages are free.

### Integrations

- **Apify API and clients**: start the Actor from any language with the Apify API (or the JavaScript and Python clients) and read the dataset when the run ends.
- **Make, n8n and Zapier**: use the official Apify modules, pick `kadro/article-text-extractor`, pass the input as JSON and map the dataset rows to your next step.
- **Google Sheets**: send the dataset to a sheet with the Apify integration or export it as CSV or Excel from the Console.
- **MCP (Claude, Cursor and other AI agents)**: add the Apify MCP server `https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=kadro/article-text-extractor` and ask, for example: "Take the latest 20 posts from this blog's RSS feed and give me each one as Markdown."

### FAQ

**There are free article extractors. Why use this one?**
This Actor expands RSS and Atom feeds for you, outputs Markdown that keeps headings, lists and tables, respects robots.txt with a clear user agent, and only charges for articles that actually produced text.

**Does it run JavaScript?**
No. Pages that need JavaScript to show their content return no text and are free.

**Which pages are skipped?**
Pages disallowed by robots.txt, non-public addresses, and pages without article text.

**Can I reuse the text?**
Copyright belongs to each site. Use the text according to their terms.

### Limitations

- No JavaScript rendering: single-page apps that render in the browser return nothing.
- Pages are fetched one per second, with a 5 MB limit per page; max 100 URLs and 10 feeds per run.
- Author names are deliberately not extracted.
- No chunking or embeddings yet: you get one Markdown text per article.
- Only public http(s) addresses are allowed.

### Other Kadro tools

- [Website to Markdown + llms.txt](https://apify.com/kadro/website-to-markdown-llms-txt)
- [PDF Text Extractor](https://apify.com/kadro/pdf-text-extractor-api)
- [Podcast Transcriber](https://apify.com/kadro/audio-podcast-transcriber-whisper)
- [Bulk OCR](https://apify.com/kadro/bulk-ocr-image-pdf-to-text)

### Credits and license

Uses the open-source `trafilatura` library (Apache-2.0). Clear user agent (KadroBot).

Found it useful? Please leave a review ⭐ — it helps a lot. Bugs or feature ideas: open an issue, I answer within 24 h.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Pages to extract (max 100). Public http(s) only; pages blocked by robots.txt are skipped.

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

Optional RSS or Atom feeds (max 10, e.g. https://example.com/feed.xml). The latest entries of each feed are extracted too.

## `maxPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

How many latest entries to take from each feed (1-50).

## `format` (type: `string`):

Plain text or Markdown (keeps headings, lists, tables).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains"
  ],
  "maxPerFeed": 10,
  "format": "markdown"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

One row per result.

# 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 = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains"
    ],
    "format": "markdown"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("kadro/article-text-extractor").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 = {
    "urls": ["https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains"],
    "format": "markdown",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("kadro/article-text-extractor").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 '{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains"
  ],
  "format": "markdown"
}' |
apify call kadro/article-text-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,kadro/article-text-extractor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/98yEse1YybG8ToPj9/builds/vqTi5XerwdOWFTipz/openapi.json