How to Add New RSS Feed Into Feedly for Firefox

Update April 2019: Thought I would add that for Firefox 63+, RSSPreview also allows you to preview a feed directly in Firefox and view it’s source code if you want. In order for this to work, you would need to select RSS for the Subscribe Using option in Awesome RSS‘s options.


Update December 2018: For Firefox 63+ they’ve removed most of the RSS handling code and adding these about:config entries don’t do anything now. See: Mozilla plans to remove RSS feed reader and Live Bookmarks support from Firefox – gHacks Tech News. Using Awesome RSS still works though.


Update November 2017: For Firefox 57+ there is now the Feedly Subscribe Button or Awesome RSS extension (which now has a Feedly option). The about:config modifications shown below also still work to add it to Firefox’s list of handlers.


Update November 26, 2013: Feedly changed their URL. They took “cloud” out of the URL. So, the correct URL is now: http://feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s which I have altered below.

Update July 3, 2013: After reading How to add web services to the RSS signup page? on the mozillaZine forum (and comments below), thought I would put what needs to be done for Feedly here (after they finish re-doing the Firefox extension, none of this should, hopefully, be necessary):

To add a feed handler manually,

  1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
  2. Press the big button to bypass the warning.
  3. In the search bar, paste browser.contentHandlers.types. and note the highest number of the preferences listed (e.g. browser.contentHandlers.types.5.title)
  4. Right-click somewhere in the lower pane and choose New, then String.
  5. Create preferences with the following values, replacing 6 with the appropriate number in your case. %s is a placeholder for the feed’s URL; Firefox will send that URL to the feed reader website.
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.title Feedly
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.type application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed
    • browser.contentHandlers.types.6.uri https://feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s
  6. Restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.

You should now see a Feedly option in your drop-down list for feed readers. πŸ™‚


Update June 25, 2013: Thought I better update this post. Currently Feedly is up to version 16.0.528 of the Firefox extension and I am now running Firefox v22.0. Also, it looks like my account is now completely handled by the Feedly Cloud. As such, my URL to add a RSS feed into Feedly has changed from what is used below. The current URL which I now use when making the bookmark is:Β http://cloud.feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%sΒ . It also seems like the extension is more of a front-end to the web only version of Feedly that adds some additional abilities over the website by itself. Hopefully this helps others that have been completely moved over to the Feedly cloud. πŸ™‚


Update March 28, 2013: Feedly just released version 14.0 of the extension for Firefox on their site. It does seem to correct the problem with adding new feeds and does seem to fix the Google+ button issue when trying to share with it. It’s got some of its own little quirks (which some may not even notice). Version 10.2 is still available on the Firefox Add-On site (actually, they keep most of the older versions archived).


As most are aware by now, Google has announced that as of July 1st, Google Reader will be shutdown. I have been testing out Feedly as a replacement. If you’re reading this then odds are that you’ve already installed the Feedly Extension for Firefox. At the moment it’s basically a front-end for Google Reader and syncs its content with Google Reader. Changes made in Feedly will appear in Google Reader and visa-versa. More information can be found here on Feedly’s blog: Transitioning from Google Reader to Feedly.

The biggest problem that I and many others have run into is adding new feeds directly into Feedly. The normal process in Firefox usually displays an error like this. Anyway, here’s the easiest way that I’ve found to do it.

First, create a new bookmark of one of your existing Feedly pages or just make a new bookmark of anything really. Then, right-click the bookmark and select properties so that the following dialog is shown:

Bookmark Properties

Like I’ve done, change the Name to something more meaningful, and most importantly, change the Location to http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s be sure to add the “%s” at the end. Then add a keyword, such as “f” like I have done, and click Save. (Note: see the June 25th update at the beginning of this post for the current URL if you’ve been moved over to the Feedly Cloud.)

Now, simply preview the RSS feed you want in Firefox using the normal method or copy the link to an RSS feed. Then in the address bar, either insert a “f(space)” (or whatever keyword you decided on) in front of the URL if it’s already showing or type “f(space)” followed by the URL to the RSS Feed:

Address Bar

After pressing enter, you should see the new page being displayed within Feedly’s context. At this point, just click on the green +Add button:

Add feed to Feedly

Success!! πŸ™‚ (oh, as of this writing I am using Firefox v19.0.2).

Update March 17, 2013: Another work-around is to simply refresh the browser using F5, the address bar’s refresh button, or Feedly’s circular arrow refresh button, if you see that unable to load feed error page. After refreshing it seems to properly decode the URL and display the appropriate content to then add.

17 thoughts on “How to Add New RSS Feed Into Feedly for Firefox

  1. Falcon

    Thank you for the edit, that worked for me. Who should we be complaining to about this, feedly or firefox? Because this seems like an easy enough fix, if refresh is fixing the problem.

    Reply
  2. Mark Headrick Post author

    This seems more like a Feedly problem to me, either within their extension or on the server end not processing the URL correctly the first time. Adding a feed this way into Live Bookmarks or Google Reader works just fine.

    I’ve seen the same thing happen with my gallery where many bots will try to access images with something like Marantz_MR220-Insert-IM.gif%3Fm%3D1283724308 which doesn’t get found and generates a 404 not found. The proper request should be Marantz_MR220-Insert-IM.gif?m=1283724308. I tweaked the gallery code to intercept these false “not found” items and figures out what they were looking for and does a 301 redirect to the correct image.

    I guess a quick and dirty fix would be that if this error is detected to just do an automatic refresh within their code.

    Reply
  3. Laura

    I believe it is a Feedly issue πŸ™‚ I have 2 blogs I want to add to my Feedly (I am a Google Reader, transitioning) , I am running into the same problem you have talked about except I am not on Firefox — I am on Google Chrome — and Feedly is not finding the info to add and/or subscribe to the feeds of the new blogs, I keep getting a ‘feed not found’ error no matter how I try to add either blog ….

    Reply
  4. laura

    The idea that Google reader can add my feed is technically irrelevant with reader being canned by Google hence trying work feedly and understand why the feed adds seen’t working; there lots of posts at feedly with my same problem.

    Reply
  5. Mark Headrick Post author

    I am aware of all the posts on Feedly’s forum, I have a few there myself. Even their latest Firefox update has a number of problems, but it did correct problems with me adding feeds without using these work-arounds. I do agree, I’ve been using Feedly to do everything knowing that GR is going the way of the Dodo bird.

    Reply
  6. Richard Ayotte

    Another method is to temporarily set gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to true in about:config and then run the following in the console. Ctrl-Shift-k

    navigator.registerContentHandler("application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed", "http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s", "Feedly");
    Reply
  7. Mark Headrick Post author

    If you try the above suggestion with the latest versions of Feedly now that it’s been moved to the cloud, you may need to change it to:

    navigator.registerContentHandler("application/vnd.mozilla.maybe.feed", "http://cloud.feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s", "Feedly");
    Reply
  8. John Winder

    I couldn’t get the console to work (didn’t know what I was doing) so I managed to achieve the same thing with this method.
    Firefox 22.0 (Windows 7 – 64bit)
    To make Feedly one of the default options when clicking on a rss feed I did the following:-
    In the address bar type about:config and press enter.
    In the search type browser.contentHandlers
    In browser.contentHandlers.types.0.title right click on My Yahoo and select Modify
    enter Feedly
    In browser.contentHandlers.types.0.uri; right click on the Yahoo subscription address and select Modify
    enter http://cloud.feedly.com/#subscription/feed/%s
    restart Firefox to activate.
    Only do this if you are confident in modifying about@config.

    Reply
  9. Mark Headrick Post author

    Thanks. I’ve gone ahead and added the information at the top of this post. Hopefully, after they re-do the Firefox extension it will make these necessary modifications. Since it’s using Feedly’s cloud website, technically you really don’t need to install the extension at all. Just have to wait to see what changes they make to it to see if it does anything extra that the website doesn’t do.

    Reply
  10. Shmoe

    Thanks! Worked like a charm! Why this isn’t done automatically by the Feedly add-on is mystery to me.

    Reply
  11. Ethan

    Thanks so much. Combined with the RSS Icon extension, it works perfectly! Couldn’t find this info anywhere else.

    Reply
  12. inter4ever

    Thanks for keeping this post updated for nearly 6 years! Was disappointed to see FF discontinued RSS, but Awesome RSS works greatly!

    Reply