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Following RSS Feeds with Mozilla Thunderbird

So I know many people see the RSS feed logo on a daily basis and have no idea what it does, or why it exists. RSS stands for rich site summary,  and does exactly what the name implies – provides a detailed summary of what is happening with a blog, news feed, or website in general. Most people use RSS because it can streamline a user’s daily news. Instead of visiting all of the blogs I enjoy to check for new content, or signing up for newsletters, I can have news and posts piped right into my RSS client. In this case I’ll be using Mozilla’s discontinued Thunderbird mail and feed client. I love the program as a free offline mail program, for it’s scheduling ability, and feed following, did I mention it was free? Get it here.

This is an RSS icon, you've undoubtedly seen it before.

This is an RSS icon, you’ve undoubtedly seen it before.

  1. Start by launching Mozilla Thunderbird
  2. Press alt to bring up your menu bar
  3. Navigate to File > New > Other Accounts…
  4. Select ‘Blog & News Feeds”
  5. Next
  6. Name your feed, I choose names based on how it will help me sort the feeds
  7. Next and finish
  8. In your left bar you should now see your new account, click on it
  9. Center top of your screen, click on “manage subscriptions”
  10. Paste or type in your feed URL
  11. Finish by clicking add
  12. Browse your new feed by clicking on it’s name in the left panel
  13. Double click a post title in the center window to open it in Mozilla Thunderbird