How To use Feedly Effectively.
Since the shutdown of Google Reader in 2013, many people (myself included) have switched to Feedly – a promising candidate at the time. And since then, no one has looked back.
Feedly is the most popular RSS reader right now, and I like it mainly for two reasons. First, it is available for all platforms i.e. web, iOS, Android, Kindle, etc. and syncs very well between them. And secondly, the reading interface is clean, which is really important for in-focus reading.
Now, if you’re new to Feedly, watch this introductory video. Here I have explained what Feedly is and how to use it on the web and mobile.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TCpH4yJqn8?rel=0]
But if you’ve been using Feedly for a while, here are some tips for using it effectively.
Feedly Tips & Tricks
# 1 See and Feel
If you don’t like Feedly’s interface, you can easily change it. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen and select – title, magazines, cards, etc. If you need to view 100 channels, use the “header only” mode. Scanning is much easier.
What’s interesting is that you can set a different layout for each category and Feedly will remember your preferences. For example, set title only for technical categories and magazine for work blogs. It works for both mobile and web platform.
# 2 Subscribe to YouTube channels or podcasts
You can also subscribe to your favorite YouTube channels and podcasts on Feedly. And you know what, you can watch your videos or listen to podcasts right in the app. You don’t need to go to external sites. There are two ways to do this.
This can be done in two ways.
2.1 To add channels one by one, go to Add Content and enter the URL of your YouTube channel or podcast.
2.2 To import your entire YouTube subscription into Feedly, go to the YouTube Subscription Manager page scroll down the page export subscription. Download this small XML file and import it into Feedly from this link (see # 6 for details).
Provided by: Yogesh Chayal
# 3 Read full article
It is now up to the webmaster to decide whether they want to show the full content in their RSS feeds or just a teaser. However, it really annoys me as a reader when I have to go to a site in a new tab just to read the entire article.
But you can fix this by clicking on the preview option at the top (or by pressing shift + v </em. This will upload the full article to Feedly.
If you have a WordPress blog and want to show your subscribers full content, go to Settings Reading and enable Full Text for your RSS feed. I didn’t know about it before.
# 4 Save this article to Feedly
There are several ways to save an article for later reading. You can add it to your Feedly Reading List (free) or subscribe to their Professional Plan if you want to keep articles in your Pocket, Evernote, Instapaper, and more.
Even if you use IFTTT, you still need a professional account to connect these two services.
However, for some strange reason, I can save my channels in my pocket account even on a free plan. There can be two reasons for this. It might be a bug, or they made this pocket integration free. Let’s hope this is the second one.
# 5 Save from anywhere
If you’ve just joined Feedly, it makes sense to install this Chrome extension. It adds a Feedly icon to the address bar and when you click on it, it takes you to its Feedly account where you can quickly subscribe to this new website.
# 6 Feedly import / export feed
Let’s say you want to import all your feeds from another RSS reader into Feedly or vice versa, then you can easily do this with an OPML file. Basically, it is a standard XML file that is used to exchange feeds between various RSS readers.
However, these import / export options are kind of hidden. So to import from another rss reader and follow this link. Or, if you want to exit Feedly, you can get the OPML file from here.
# 7 Keyboard shortcuts
Feedly for the web supports several keyboard shortcuts. And you can find the complete list by pressing Shift +? keyboard shortcut.
Most often I used –
- left / right arrow keys: to switch between open messages.
- v: view the original article in a new tab
- s: save for later reading
- Shift + a: mark everything as read
# 8 Quickly mark as read
By default, you must click on mark reading option as soon as you finish reading. This is good and works for most people. However, if you want to do it differently, there are several other ways to do it.
To mark articles as read as they are viewed, turn on Auto-mark as read in settings.
To mark everything as read, use the keyboard shortcut shift + a. But if you want to apply this to the category you are in, use the keyboard shortcut shift + m.
Or, you can even narrow down your articles to articles from a specific website. To do this, go to Feedly’s preferences Confirm Mark as Read Yes. Now you can click the numbers next to the website name and it will turn to zero. Works online only.
# 9 Add your Twitter feed to Feedly
Twitter is a great place to follow new trends. However, being on Twitter around the clock kills productivity. So is there a way to integrate Twitter with Feedly?
Well, since Twitter doesn’t offer an RSS feed, it won’t work out of the box with Feedly. But you can easily create this feed for any of your Twitter streams with this Google Spreadsheet created by Amit Agarwal.
Once you get the RSS feed, go to add content and paste it there. And Feedly will start tracking this. All in all, it works like a charm and it only took me a minute to set it up.
# 10 Subscribe to part of the blog
Let’s say you’re only interested in a specific part of the site. Like – you only want to subscribe to articles from a specific author, subdomain or tags, etc., and then just add that URL to Feedly.
For example, I only want to read technical articles on HowStuffWorks, so I google “technology, how things work†and click on the first link. This will take me to the HowStuffWork technical subdomain. Now all I have to do is copy and paste this URL into Feedly.
Also Read : How to Find an RSS Feed URL for Any Website