RSS Feed Reader: RSS, Atom & JSON Feed Alerts

RSS Feed Reader reads RSS, Atom and JSON Feed and returns every item in one clean schema. Give it feed URLs, website URLs or OPML files. For a website, it finds the feed link in the page head.

Each item has the title, link, publish date, update date, author name, categories, a short summary and the enclosure URL. The same article in two feeds is saved once. Include and exclude keywords keep only the items you care about.

Turn on monitor mode and schedule the Actor. Each run then returns only new items. Use it for news alerts, competitor blog tracking, podcast episode lists and AI agent inputs.

RSS feed formats supported

Format	Versions	Notes
RSS	2.0, 0.91, 0.92	Includes dc:creator, content:encoded, media:content and podcast enclosures
RSS 1.0 (RDF)	1.0	Dublin Core dates, creators and subjects
Atom	1.0	xml:base, text, HTML and XHTML content, enclosure links
JSON Feed	1.0, 1.1	authors, tags and attachments
OPML	1.0, 2.0	Reads every xmlUrl the file lists
Website page	Any HTML	Reads <link rel="alternate"> feed links. If there is none, it tries /feed, /rss.xml, /feed.xml, /atom.xml and /index.xml

RSS feed data you get

Field	Meaning
feedUrl, feedTitle, feedType, siteUrl, feedLanguage	The feed the item came from
title	Item title
link	Link to the article on the publisher's site
guid	Item ID as the feed publishes it
published, updated	Dates in ISO 8601 UTC
authorName	Author names as published. Email addresses are removed
categories	Categories or tags
summary	Plain-text snippet, 200 characters by default. Never the full article
enclosureUrl, enclosureType, enclosureLength	Attached media file, for example a podcast episode
imageUrl	Item image or thumbnail from the feed, or null. A link to the publisher's file. The image is never downloaded
matchedKeywords	Your include keywords that the item matched
alsoInFeeds	Other input feeds that carried the same item
id	Stable ID. Monitor mode uses it to spot new items

Sample record from a test run on 21 October 2026:

{
    "id": "05b4b37dda9435ebfb591ad8",
    "feedUrl": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/feed.xml",
    "feedTitle": "Rust Blog",
    "feedType": "atom",
    "siteUrl": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/",
    "feedLanguage": "en",
    "title": "Announcing rustup 1.29.2",
    "link": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/2026/10/20/Rustup-1.29.2/",
    "guid": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/2026/10/20/Rustup-1.29.2/",
    "published": "2026-10-20T00:00:00.000Z",
    "updated": "2026-10-20T00:00:00.000Z",
    "authorName": "The Rustup Team",
    "categories": [],
    "summary": "The rustup team is happy to announce the release of rustup version 1.29.2. Rustup is the recommended tool to install Rust, a programming language that empowers everyone to build reliable and...",
    "enclosureUrl": null,
    "enclosureType": null,
    "enclosureLength": null,
    "imageUrl": null,
    "matchedKeywords": [],
    "alsoInFeeds": [],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T14:28:50.643Z"
}

A field is null or empty when the feed does not publish it. The Actor never fills a gap with a guess.

Items are sorted newest first across all feeds. Items without a date come last.

How to use the RSS feed reader

1. Paste feed URLs, website URLs or OPML file URLs into Feed or site URLs.
2. Optional: add Include keywords such as funding or outage. Add Exclude keywords to drop noise.
3. Optional: set Maximum item age to keep only recent items.
4. Run the Actor. Open the Overview table or download JSON, CSV or Excel.
5. For alerts, turn on Monitor mode and add a schedule. Connect a webhook, Slack, email or Make to the run to get new items.

Each run also saves a FEED_REPORT record in the key-value store. It lists every input, the feed it resolved to, the item count, and why any feed was skipped.

Input

Option	Default	Meaning
Feed or site URLs	3 sample feeds	Feeds, websites or OPML files. Up to 1,000 feeds per run
Include keywords	None	Keep items that match at least one. Latin words match whole words. Arabic words match inside words
Exclude keywords	None	Drop items that match any of these
Maximum item age (days)	0 (any age)	Keep only items from the last N days
Monitor mode	Off	Return only items not returned before
Monitor state key	default	Use one key per watch list
Maximum items	100	Stop after this many items. Set 0 for no limit
Maximum items per feed	0 (all)	Take only the newest N items of each feed
Summary length	200	Characters in the snippet, 500 at most. 0 removes it
Feeds per website	1	How many discovered feed links to read per website
Try common feed paths	On	Try /feed and similar when a page links to no feed

Example input:

{
    "feedUrls": ["https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/feed/", "https://blog.rust-lang.org/"],
    "keywords": ["Mars", "release"],
    "monitorMode": true,
    "stateKey": "space-and-rust",
    "maxItems": 0
}

RSS feed reader pricing

You pay a small fee per run and a fee for each item saved to your dataset. Items dropped by your filters, and items that monitor mode already returned, cost nothing. See the exact prices on the Pricing tab. Apify's free plan credit covers many small runs.

FAQ

Does it copy full articles? No. It saves the title, link, dates, author name, categories and a short snippet. Follow the link to read the article on the publisher's site.

Does it return images? Yes, as a link. imageUrl holds the item's thumbnail or first image as the feed publishes it, or null when the feed has none. The Actor never downloads or stores the image itself.

Does it respect robots.txt? Yes. It reads robots.txt for every host before it fetches a page or a feed. A disallowed feed is skipped and listed in FEED_REPORT. It also waits at least 1 second between requests to the same host.

Can it read feeds behind a login or a bot challenge? No. Those feeds are skipped.

How does it find duplicates? It compares links after it removes tracking parameters such as utm_source, the www. prefix and the trailing slash. Without a link it uses the feed's item ID.

How long does monitor mode remember items? It remembers an item while the item is still in a feed, and for 180 days after it leaves.

Data sources and use

• The Actor reads only the URLs you give it, plus robots.txt.
• Each publisher sets its own terms. Check them before you republish feed content.
• It does not collect email addresses or other contact details.

Related Actors

• Regulator Circulars Monitor tracks new circulars from financial regulators.
• Technical SEO Audit checks a website for SEO issues and broken links.

Support

Report a problem in the Issues tab. Include the run link and the feed URL.