HowTo: Thunderbird - News/Feed Reader

Though primarily developed to function as an email client, Thunderbird is also a great way to read and keep up with your feeds and aggregations. A major benefit from using Thunderbird as RSS feed reader client is its being offline mode of feeds viewing and reading (depending on the feed type). Thunderbird also features OPML import/export capability.

Here's an entry on how to setup your Thunderbird to collect feeds and news articles from your favorite news and blog sites.

One basic requirement of this entry is to have Thunderbird application installed from your linux machine. If you have Thunderbird installed already, skip the below step.

To install Thunderbird, simply install it using yum like so
# yum -y install thunderbird

and proceed to normal email account client setup.

After successfully setting up your POP emails, launch Thunderbird.

From the Thunderbird menus, go to Edit > Account Settings, create a separate account and folder destination of your feeds by clickng Add Account button. This would bring up several windows as shown below

Enter your feed folder details as shown below. This would server as your feed folder identifier for your feeds/news subscriptions. All feeds would be fetched and stored into this feed folder location.

Now, click Finish and you will be redirected back to Thunderbird window.

Inside the Thunderbird application, notice the new feed folder you just created from following the above steps.

Now, right click on that feed folder and select Subscribe. You will then be prompted by several similar windows below. Proceed by clicking Add for adding new feed subscriptions.

Fill up the feed name and fee link as shown


And finally, after successful feed setup, Thunderbird would now retrieve all feed/news articles and entries from your new feed subscription. That't it, enjoy reading your subscriptions!

If you wish to add more feed subscriptions, repeat the process again. If you wish to manage your subscriptions, click the feed folder name and select Manage Subscription from the right view pane.

See my Thunderbird screenshot below:


Enjoy!