Syndicator

The main RSS Retriever page is where you add content sources, see their schedule and act on many feeds at once.

WordPress Dashboard › RSS Retriever

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New RSS URL

Paste a source URL and click Syndicate ». RSS Retriever downloads it, shows a preview and opens the settings for the new feed. The feed is saved only when you click Syndicate This Feed at the bottom of the settings page.

Supported sources

• RSS and Atom feeds of any version, including feeds with extra namespaces such as media:.
• Other XML files, for example product or job feeds. Their tags are available through XML placeholders and custom fields.
• Compressed feeds: ZIP, Gzip and Bzip2 files are unpacked automatically.
• YouTube channel pages (https://www.youtube.com/@name): the plugin finds the channel feed on the page. Video feeds of YouTube and Flickr, and IGN video items, get special handling for embedding.
• HTML pages and XML sitemaps, when the Full-Text RSS script is installed: it converts the page into a feed.

Feeds in national encodings such as windows-1251 or ISO-8859-1 can be converted to UTF-8, see Convert character encoding. Looking for sources? Try the RSS Catalog.

Quick override default settings

Some sites refuse requests that do not look like a browser. Click Quick override default settings under the URL field to set connection options for the next feed you add, before it is downloaded:

• Proxy mode: No proxy or Use proxy list from General Settings.
• Use Wayback Machine: fall back to archive.org when the source blocks access.
• User agent, HTTP referrer and HTTP headers.

These values apply to that one new feed only and are not saved as defaults. They are described in detail under Connection settings.

The feed list

Each row shows the Feed title with an edit link, the URL, the Next update and the Last update. Feeds are sorted by name or by date, see Sort feed sources by. Tick feeds, or the box in the header to select all, then use a button:

Pull selected feeds now!

Checks the selected feeds immediately, regardless of their schedule, and prints a report of each processed item. Handy to test new settings.

Mass modify selected feeds

Opens the feed settings in bulk mode. Every option gets a red check box on its left. Only options with a ticked red box are applied to the selected feeds when you click Apply these settings to selected feeds; all other settings of those feeds stay unchanged.

Shuffle update times

Randomly changes the last update time of the selected feeds, so feeds added at the same moment do not all run together.

Delete selected feeds and syndicated posts

Removes the feeds and permanently deletes every post imported from them, together with the images and videos the plugin downloaded for those posts.

Delete selected feeds

Removes the feeds and keeps their posts.

Delete posts syndicated from selected feeds

Permanently deletes the imported posts and their downloaded media and keeps the feeds.

Alter default settings

The Alter default settings button opens the same six tabs as a feed. The values you save with Update default settings are suggested every time you add a new feed. The Undefined categories option of every feed can also refer to these defaults with Use default settings.

Editing a feed

Click edit next to a feed title. The page shows a fresh preview and all settings of the feed, including its Feed URL. If you change the URL, posts already imported from the old URL are reassigned to the new one. Save with Update Feed Settings.

Export and import

Move feeds between sites or keep a backup:

• Export: tick feeds in the list and click Export Selected Feeds. You get a file with the feeds and all their settings.
• Import: choose the file under Import and click Import Feed Settings. A feed with the same URL and title as an existing one replaces its settings; all other feeds are added as new.

Shortcuts

The plugin adds RSS Retriever Feed to the + New menu of the admin bar and a Syndicator link to the plugin row on the Plugins page.