Troubleshooting & How-Tos 📡 🔍

Finding Fediverse Feeds

Almost all of these platforms can talk to each other via ActivityPub (or at least try to), but sometimes you want to hook up a public stream to another application – maybe to read on your own feed reader like NetNewsWire or Feedly or Thunderbird, maybe to drive an action through IFTTT or Zapier. Fortunately, most Fediverse platforms do feature an RSS or Atom feed for public posts!

But it’s not always easy to find the feed URL, which is why I made this list.

Categories

General / Microblogging

Mastodon

Add .rss to the profile URL. Or to the hashtag search URL.

https://mastodon.example/@UserName.rss
https://mastodon.example/tags/HashTag.rss
https://mastodon.example/@UserName/tagged/HashTag.rss

Not visible or auto-discoverable.
Text only, title is excerpt. Posts only, no replies.

Akkoma

Add .atom to the profile URL.

https://akkoma.example/users/UserName/feed.atom

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

Friendica

Friendica offers several Atom feeds depending on which type of activity you want to follow.

https://friendica.example/dfrn_poll/UserName
https://friendica.example/feed/UserName/
https://friendica.example/feed/UserName/comments
https://friendica.example/feed/UserName/activity

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

GNU Social

https://gnusocial.example/api/statuses/user_timeline/1234.rss
https://gnusocial.example/api/statuses/user_timeline/1234.atom

It uses the numeric ID, but the links are on the profile page.

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

GoToSocial

Add /feed.rss to the blog or user profile.
Text only, title is excerpt.

https://gotosocial.example/@UserName/feed.rss

Can be enabled/disabled by each user.
Visible link and auto-discoverable. Posts only, no replies.

Hubzilla

https://hubzilla.example/feed/UserName

Auto-discoverable, no visible link.

Snac2

Add .rss to the profile URL.

https://snac2.example/UserName.rss

Visible link and auto-discoverable.
Title is excerpt.

Takahē

Add /rss/ to the profile URL.

https://takahe.example/@UserName@takahe.example/rss/

Auto-discoverable, no visible link.
Text-only, title is username and post ID. Posts and replies.

Misskey / FoundKey / Calckey / Firefish / Iceshrimp / Catodon

Add .rss to the profile URL.

https://misskey.example/@UserName.rss

Not visible or auto-discoverable.
Title is “New ___ by UserName”. Posts and replies.

Pleroma

Add /feed.atom to the profile URL.

https://pleroma.example/users/UserName/feed.atom

Auto-discoverable, no visible link.

Threads

As near as I can tell, Threads doesn’t provide RSS feeds. This is no surprise since it’s an offshoot of Instagram, which has historically been hostile to anything other than their own app being able to see more than just enough to try to draw people in. Which makes it a surprise that they’re building toward federation via ActivityPub, which is why I added them to the list.

Bluesky

Bluesky speaks a different protocol (AT) than the vast majority of Fediverse software, but it’s working toward federation across distributed Bluesky instances. Add in bridging services and it’s arguably just another layer of federation between instances that talk one protocol or the other.

They added RSS feeds in January 2024. If you want to construct the URL manually, it’s kind of a pain:

https://bsky.app/profile/long-did-identifier/rss

But you mostly won’t need to, because it’s auto-discoverable from the user’s profile page.

Auto-discoverable, no visible link.
Plain-text, which means URLs aren’t auto-linked.

Long-Form Blogging

Plume

Plume is a blogging platform where users can write for multiple blogs, and blogs can have more than one author – and you can subscribe to either.

Add /atom.xml to the blog or user profile.

https://plume.example/~/BlogName/atom.xml
https://plume.example/~/UserName/atom.xml

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

WriteFreely / Write.as

A blogging platform and service.

Add /feed/ to the user profile URL.

https://writefreely.example/UserName/feed/

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

WordPress

WordPress sites can now interact with the Fediverse using an ActivityPub plugin that can also be enabled on WordPress.com hosted sites. It doesn’t change where the RSS/Atom feeds are – they’re auto-discoverable, visible in the default config, and mostly you can just add /feed/ to the end of any post, category, tag or author URL and get a valid feed.

Other

Bookwyrm (Book Reviews)

Bookwyrm is a book review, discussion and reading list site similar to Goodreads.

Add /rss to the profile URL.

https://bookwyrm.example/user/UserName/rss

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

Additional feeds shown on profile for just reviews, just comments, and just quotes.

Title: User name and description of activity (finished reading X, replied to Y, reviewed Z, etc.)

Funkwhale (Music)

TODO add example URL

Visible link, not sure if auto-discoverable.

Lemmy (Discussion Forum)

Lemmy is similar to Reddit, and you can subscribe to both communities and individual users. You can even prioritize your feed by New, Active, etc. – just change the sort on the web page before you copy the RSS link!

https://lemmy.example/feeds/c/CommunityName.xml?sort=New
https://lemmy.example/feeds/u/UserName.xml?sort=New

Visible link and auto-discoverable.
Title is original post title.
Both feeds only include top-level posts, not comments.

KBin (Discussion Forum)

KBin is another discussion forum similar to Reddit and Lemmy, and you can subscribe to magazines and users through RSS.

https://kbin.example/rss?magazine=MagazineName
https://kbin.example/rss?user=UserName

Visible links, not auto-discoverable (yet).
Title is original post title.
Both feeds only include top-level posts, not comments.

PeerTube (Video)

Video sharing platform similar to YouTube.

https://peertube.example/feeds/videos.xml?videoChannelId=1234
https://peertube.example/feeds/videos.atom?videoChannelId=1234
https://peertube.example/feeds/videos.json?videoChannelId=1234

On one hand, you need to get the numeric ID of the channel. On the other hand, the feed links are on the channel’s web page.

Visible link, not auto-discoverable.

Pixelfed (Photos)

Photo sharing platform similar to Instagram.

https://pixelfed.example/users/UserName.atom

Visible (in ··· or ⚙️ menu, depending on which UI)
Auto-discoverable (logged-out view only).
Images loaded remotely, title is full text of post.

Postmarks (Bookmarks)

Single-user bookmark tagging and sharing with fediverse-powered comments, inspired by Delicious, Google Reader and Branch.

https://postmarks.example/index.xml

Visible link and auto-discoverable.

There are a zillion others out there. If you have one you’d like to add to this list, feel free to reply to the Mastodon post or email me at the address in the footer.