Features #

Receive email digests for your RSS feeds
We try to render all content within the feed as HTML (with ability to disable it)
Create 1-to-many email digests
Set digest interval from 10min to 30day
Only receive RSS feed items that haven't already been sent

Use our plain text lists spec to create a txt file named daily.txt (as an example).

Then add your email, the digest interval, and the rss feeds for which you want to receive email notifications.

=: email rss@myemail.com
=: digest_interval 1day
=> https://blog.pico.sh/rss
=> https://bower.sh/rss

Then copy the file to our server

1rsync daily.txt feeds.pico.sh:/
2# or
3scp daily.txt feeds.pico.sh:/

Digest interval options #

10min
1hour
6hour
12hour
1day
7day
30day

Inline content #

By default we attempt to render all content within a feed as HTML inside an email digest. Sometimes users just want us to send them the links so they can click on it and read the content on the original website.

If you don't want to see all the content, simply add a variable to your post:

=: inline_content false

Remote CLI #

We provide a remote CLI that users can use to perform a couple of simple but powerful operations

1$ ssh feeds.pico.sh help
2
3Commands: [help, ls, rm, run]
4
5Cmd            Desc
6help           this help text
7ls             list feed digest posts with metadata
8rm {filename}  removes feed digest post
9run {filename} runs the feed digest post immediately, ignoring last digest time validation

Debugging #

Sometimes a feed digest post will fail to send an email digest. Here are some common reasons:

Digest interval has not been reach yet
All RSS feed entries have already been fetched
Feed digest post validation error
Requests fail because of network connectivity issues
RSS feed is not accessible (e.g. site admins change the url or discontinue it)
We are perceived as a bot and are blocked

We have two primary ways for a customer to debug why their email digests are not being sent: logs and the feeds remote cli.

We provide the ability for users to immediately run their feed post, ignoring digest interval validation. This will also show all logs related to fetching that post.

1ssh feeds.pico.sh run {filename}

If you run this command and still do not understand why your email digest isn't being sent, then please contact us.

Keep Alive #

We require the user to click a link in their email digest every once in awhile in order to keep the feed digest post active. This user requirement plays an important role in keeping our rss-to-email service healthy. If we didn't require user interaction then we could keep sending an email digest to users that never read their digests.

This keep-alive interval is subject to change. As of writing this (02/2025) we require the user to click the keep-alive link once every 12 months.

Multiple feed digest posts #

You are free to upload as many email digests as you like, referencing different rss feeds, emails, and digest intervals.

Remove feed digest post #

There are two main options for removing a post: remote CLI and sftp.

Reddit #

Yes, but you need to use the RSS links from https://old.reddit.com. The new reddit doesn't appear to work properly.

Privacy #

We don't do anything with your email besides send an email digest. If you delete the post containing your email address, we no longer have you email address.

However, you should read our privacy policy and terms of service.

Posts are also not accessible by the public and we provide no endpoints to view these posts.

rss-to-email