RSS Feed Scraper: RSS & Atom to JSON

Turn one or hundreds of public RSS and Atom feeds into clean, structured dataset items. Use it for one-off scrapes, bulk exports, content aggregation, podcast and YouTube feed ingestion, research, or an AI/RAG pipeline without proxies or cookies.

First run: use the prefilled Hacker News feed with five items. A successful run produces at most six dataset rows, or $0.048 at the current $0.008 per row. Check the live Pricing tab before starting, then inspect the feed_item rows in the default dataset.

Need an hourly or daily schedule that returns only new items? RSS Feed Monitor handles deduplication across runs. Its HN and BBC example shows the separate workflow.

Import a ready-to-run workflow

Use the tested starter inputs in n8n JSON or the Make blueprint. Setup instructions explain import, credentials, output fields and recovery. Download both platforms as a ZIP.

Select your own Apify credential after importing and run manually first. The templates set a $1 maximum run budget, check run success and preserve useful output. The $1 setting is a ceiling, not a fixed charge. Source availability and provider execution limits still apply. No recurring schedule or external destination is enabled by these files.

What you get

• Parse multiple RSS or Atom feed URLs in one run.
• Extract titles, links, authors, publication dates, categories, summaries, full content when supplied by the feed, and media/enclosure metadata.
• Control volume independently for every feed, from 1 to 500 items.
• Continue processing other feeds if an individual feed is temporarily unavailable or malformed.
• Export results as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML through Apify datasets.
• Run manually, on a schedule, by API, or from Make, Zapier, n8n, webhooks, and other Apify integrations.

Quick start

{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 5,
  "includeContent": true
}

The prefilled first run uses this one-feed, five-entry example. It produces at most six billed dataset rows, or $0.048 at the current $0.008 per row, when the feed succeeds. The output includes one metadata row plus up to five entry rows. Check the live Pricing tab before running. Results appear in the default dataset. The API default remains 50 entries per feed when maxItemsPerFeed is omitted, so set a limit explicitly when cost matters.

Try the ready-to-run examples: HN and BBC news feeds or Google Developers YouTube feed.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
feedUrls	string[]	Yes	None	Public RSS or Atom feed URLs to parse.
maxItemsPerFeed	integer	No	50 for omitted API input; 5 prefilled in the form	Maximum items extracted from each feed. Allowed range: 1–500.
includeContent	boolean	No	true	Include full article content when the feed provides it.

Output

The Actor writes three record types to the default dataset: feed_metadata, feed_item, and error. For articles or videos, filter rows to type === "feed_item". Inspect error rows even when the run status is successful: a failed feed does not prevent other feeds from completing.

After exporting the dataset as JSON, the free local dataset receipt example counts all three row types and exits nonzero for a failed or empty feed. It does not start another Actor run. The five-item walkthrough shows the same bounded input and illustrative output.

Use guid with feedUrl as a downstream identity where available, and fall back to the entry link. A repeat run returns the feed again; this scraper does not maintain a cross-run seen-item history.

The Actor writes feed metadata and normalized feed entries to the default Apify dataset. Available fields depend on what each publisher includes in its feed and can include:

• feed and item titles
• canonical links
• author or creator
• publication date
• description or content snippet
• full encoded content
• categories
• enclosures and media metadata

Because publishers expose different RSS extensions, fields that are absent in the source feed may be empty.

Common use cases

News and competitor monitoring

Collect recent posts from company blogs, publications, press rooms, or industry sources on a schedule and send new items to Slack, email, a database, or a spreadsheet.

AI and RAG ingestion

Convert feeds into predictable JSON before embedding, summarizing, classifying, or routing content through an agent workflow.

Podcast and YouTube monitoring

Ingest podcast RSS feeds and public YouTube channel feeds, including available dates, links, descriptions, and enclosure/media data.

Content aggregation

Combine multiple public feeds in one run and export the output to JSON, CSV, or Excel for a dashboard, newsletter, or research pipeline.

API example

Run this request from a terminal after setting APIFY_TOKEN. Keep your token private; the Authorization header avoids putting it into the URL.

curl --request POST \
  'https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/technicaldost~rss-feed-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?timeout=120' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"feedUrls":["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"],"maxItemsPerFeed":5,"includeContent":true}'

In n8n, Make or another HTTP workflow, use the same POST URL, headers and JSON body. Split the returned array into rows, keep type=feed_item, and map title, link, pubDate, summary and guid to your next step. Large batches should use the asynchronous Actor runs endpoint and fetch the resulting dataset after completion.

Pricing

This Actor costs $8.00 per 1,000 dataset items. Always check the live Pricing tab before a large run. You pay for results, not a subscription. Use maxItemsPerFeed to control entry volume. Metadata and error rows are also dataset items under the current pricing model. An unavailable feed can therefore produce a billed error row. The run-budget minimum shown by Apify is not a minimum actual bill.

Limits and responsible use

• The feed URL must be publicly reachable by Apify.
• The Actor does not sign in to private feeds or bypass access controls.
• Output completeness depends on the fields supplied by the publisher.
• Respect publisher terms, copyright, privacy, and applicable laws when storing or republishing feed content.

Support

If a valid public feed fails or a field is parsed incorrectly, open an issue with the feed URL, expected behavior, and a sample of the missing data. Do not include credentials or private feed tokens.