If you’re like most people, you probably use Microsoft Outlook as your main email and newsreader. But there are a lot of great ways to use Outlook as an RSS reader, too. Here are three tips:
- Add an RSS feed to your Outlook profile. This will add the RSS feed to your inbox and allow you to read the latest posts from the RSS feed on your computer or phone.
- Use the “New Inbox” button in the top left corner of your Outlook window to create a new inbox for yourself with all of your new RSS subscriptions. This will make it easy to find and follow all of your favorite RSS feeds without having to search through all of your email!
- Use “Customize My Profile” in the “Account Settings” section of your Outlook settings page to set up some basic preferences for how you want Outlook to work with RSS subscriptions. For example, you might want to set up a password for each subscription so that you can’t lose them or accidentally delete them!
RSS feeds are great for getting alerted to new articles on your favorite sites. But your personal time shouldn’t be taken up with reading work articles. Split your professional and personal subscriptions by adding work feeds to Microsoft Outlook instead.
Managing feeds in Outlook is super easy, although it can only be done in the desktop Outlook client. If you only use the Outlook web app, there are plenty of other good feed readers, like Feedly or Inoreader, to choose from instead. Alternatively, you can subscribe to your feeds using Slack or Microsoft Teams.
RELATED: How to Send RSS Feeds to a Microsoft Teams Channel
RSS feeds in Microsoft Outlook are created in the “RSS Subscriptions” folder.
Right-click the “RSS Subscription” folder and select “Add a New RSS Feed.”
In the “New RSS Feed” window that pops up, enter the feed address of the website or blog that you want to follow, then click “Add.”
If you’re happy to stick with the default settings, select “Yes.”
If you want to see or change the default settings, click “Advanced.”
This will open the “RSS Feed Options” panel. Change the “Feed Name” or the folder where the articles will be displayed, then click “OK.”
Now select “Yes” to proceed.
A new folder for the feed will be created under the “RSS Subscriptions” folder, and Microsoft Outlook will pull back the latest feeds for you.
Deleting a subscription is as easy as right-clicking the feed folder and selecting “Delete Folder.”
You can apply categories to downloaded articles, but there are no bells and whistles like there are with specialized RSS feed readers. However, sometimes bells and whistles aren’t required. If you just want a quick and easy way to see your feeds, Microsoft Outlook might just be the right tool for the job.
