After a few months, a feed list collects a few strays. One site stops answering, another goes quiet, a third posts forty times a day. My Feeds is where you sort all of that out.
Find the feeds that need a look
Open Discover and choose the My Feeds tab. Every feed you follow is listed there, with the address it comes from. If any of them failed on their last check, a small warning chip with a triangle and a number appears above the list. Hover over it and it reads Needs attention. Click it and the list shows only those feeds.
Each failing feed also has a yellow triangle next to its name. Click it and a window opens that says Not updating and explains, in plain words, what FeedBro found and what you can do.
When a feed will not load
What you see in that window depends on the cause. These are the common ones.
- The site answers with an error, or says the page is gone. Use Open the address to try it in your own browser. If it opens for you, press It opens for me and FeedBro tries again. If it really does not open, the site has probably removed the feed, so look on the site for a new address or choose It does not open: unfollow.
- The address is now an ordinary web page. The site dropped its feed. Press Watch the site's page instead to be told about new posts anyway, or remove the feed.
- The site turns FeedBro away, or sits behind a sign-in. Your own browser can often get in where FeedBro's servers cannot. Install the FeedBro extension for Chrome or Firefox, make sure you are signed in to the site in that browser, then open the feed in your reading list and press Fix in my browser. A small window opens. When it says the feed was saved, reload the page. In the Android app, use Try on my phone instead.
You do not always have to act. If a site moves its feed to a new address, FeedBro follows it and switches your feed over by itself, then sends you a note about it. Feeds that stop working for a short while often start again on their own, because FeedBro keeps checking in the background.
Quiet and empty feeds
A feed marked Empty right now is not broken. FeedBro reached it, but the site has not published anything in it. New posts appear once it does. A feed marked This feed looks stuck in your reading list is a different case: the site still publishes, but its feed has not had a new post for a while, and FeedBro could not find a better one. Watching the site's page is the usual answer there.
If a feed has simply gone quiet for good, you can remove it. Click the trash icon on its row, called Unfollow, and confirm. Its articles leave your lists. Articles you saved or kept for later stay.
Rename a feed
- Click the pencil next to the feed's name in My Feeds.
- Type the name you want and press Enter.
Only you see the new name. You can also change it from the gear menu on the row, in the Name box, then Save.
Cap a busy feed
Some feeds publish so much that they bury everything else. Click the gear on the feed's row and set Show at most to 10, 20, 50 or 100 newest articles. The default is All its articles. Press Save. The same menu lets you change how often FeedBro checks (Check for new articles) and turn on Notify me of new articles for feeds you never want to miss.
Group feeds into collections
Collections are folders for your feeds. The Free plan allows 10 of them.
- Open Collections from your account menu at the top of the page.
- Press + New Collection, type a name and press Create.
- Select the collection. Under Add feeds, search for a feed and press the plus beside it.
- To take a feed out again, press the button beside it in the list on the left. The feed itself stays followed.
On the same page you can rename or delete a collection. Deleting it does not unfollow its feeds.
Good to know
- Something wrong that the window did not explain? Press the small flag on the feed's row, or Report a problem at the bottom of the list.
- Removing a feed here is the same as unfollowing it anywhere else in FeedBro.
A quick pass through Needs attention once a month keeps the list short and the reading list full of things you actually want.
