Able to retrieve all feeds with "full articles" at once for offline access

[eda4github]

Dear Martin,

I discovered the RSS Guard while searching for alternatives to my podcast player's feed reader on Android, which is hard to use for long articles on a small screen.

I'm looking for a way to configure the RSS Guard to retrieve all feeds with full articles at once for offline access, like my podcast player (Podcast Republic) does.

Yours perhaps may not be able to do that unless I view every article online first then it caches the full article only after that (I suppose)

If not configurable by a user I wonder if you could accommodate such feature

Thank you for your initiative and the app I appreciate very much

Best

[Mitecon]

I would second this. In fact, I was going to post my own feature request for basically this exact same thing. Except I don't need it for offline use - I want to be able to trigger filters on the full text of articles. This is what I wrote but never actually posted:

When downloading feeds, quite often there is only a short preview - maybe a paragraph or even just a single sentence, meaning you'd have to open the article to view it in full. I have filters that look for certain keywords in the body of the article that may not be present in these previews, but the keywords might exist in the full article. However, I'm not always interested in opening every single article in a feed if it does not contain the keyword(s) I'm interested in and this can obviously take up a huge amount of time if there are a lot of articles.

What I'd like is for the feeds I select to have the option to download the full article, as though it has been loaded fully when done manually (e.g. opened in internal or external browser). Then the filters can run on those fully loaded articles and obviously apply whatever appropriate labels which I have coloured and easy to spot. This way I can quickly see if my filters have triggered on something and I can ignore all the less relevant articles until later.

I'd like to see a feature like this configurable to have these options:

1. Download full articles for only the feeds you specify, rather than a global on/off switch
2. Be able to choose between text only or text and images to minimise database bloat with potentially huge images

There is a problem that I can foresee in that some articles in some feeds might be paywalled and cause problems for a feature such as this. For example, you might get a short preview but if the full article was attempted to be downloaded it might throw up a 'Subscribe to see the full article' kind of thing which leaves you with no preview at all.

[martinrotter]

https://github.com/martinrotter/rssguard/blob/master/resources/scripts/scrapers/scrape-full-articles.py

Also read the rssguard docs for website scraping feature. This works nicely and is used by many users, including me.

[eda4github]

Dear Martin,

I believe making things more user-friendly:
how about adding a simple checkbox in the feed properties to download the full text, maybe with an option for images too?

I remember there was an RSS reader, maybe Chaski or Raven, that had something like this, but it looks like they haven’t been updated in ages and are kind of abandoned now.

I think a lot of users would really dig this feature, and
it could help make RSSGuard the go-to program out there!

Thanks for considering it!

[martinrotter]

This is very requested feature indeed. I might make a BIG exception and integrate this directly into rssguard, but again, exception.

[eda4github]

This is very requested feature indeed. I might make a BIG exception and integrate this directly into rssguard, but again, exception.

Dear Martin,

Hope you’re doing well!

I just wanted to check in about the feature you mentioned integrating into RSSGuard.

I know you said it might be a big exception, but I’m curious if there’s any update on when we might see it.

A lot of us are really looking forward to it!

Thanks for all your hard work!

Cheers,

[Mitecon]

There's a point where people are either 'Users' or 'Power Users' or somewhere in between. I'm kind of somewhere in between. I get that RSS Guard is very powerful but with that power comes the requirement to know how to make use of it. For example, I looked at your link and I'm... Lost... When I used to use QuiteRSS it was dead simple - no JavaScript whatsoever. Not even regex if you didn't want to. I mean, after I started using RSS Guard and made a filter that worked and didn't end up with an error I struggled to debug, I felt proud of myself. But 'scrape-full-articles.py' is a bit beyond me. Like, where would I even start? Where would I put all this stuff? Is there a tutorial?

Is there no way to make all the stuff in 'scrape-full-articles.py' into a simple checkbox in the feed properties? Because I don't know how or where to plug it in.

What I'm trying to say is: 'Many users' isn't 'all users'. Meaning I and no doubt many others are locked out of this kind of stuff so we stick to the simpler things and forego all the power user stuff. We compromise. I'm sure it all works and is very simple if you know what you're doing. Most of us don't, so we do without.

This says it all:

From https://rssguard.readthedocs.io/en/stable/features/scraping.html

[martinrotter]

Yes, I know, this is rather advanced feature. I will rewrite this part of documentation in the future and to explain the feature much better and provide step by step tutorial-like experience.

These scripts are often use for bit more complex functionalities which are not easy to bundle directly into the application, for many (technical) reasons.

[touwys]

Yes, I know, this is rather advanced feature. I will rewrite this part of documentation in the future and to explain the feature much better and provide step by step tutorial-like experience.

These scripts are often use for bit more complex functionalities which are not easy to bundle directly into the application, for many (technical) reasons.

@martinrotter

If at all possible, please make this a much less complex exercise. For example, I am using an Android feed reader that has truly nailed this feature down to a few easy clicks only, and does it work a charm — e.g. no scripts required up front. The basic steps involved are (3 x screenshots enclosed):

1. Click to add a new feed to add the desired news web page URL, feed title, and other required details.

2. Add filters as required.

3. Add simple, preformed rules (checkboxes) for each filter.

That's all, scraping done. (My personal go-to rule is "Accept" + "URL".)

•

20250409-1 _ handy web page - links

•

20250409-2 _ handy web page - filters

•

20250409-3 _ handy web page - rules

[eda4github]

Subject: Inquiry About Offline Reading Settings

Dear Martin,

I recently updated the app and noticed that I couldn't find any settings related to downloading full articles for offline reading.

If this feature is available, could you please guide me on how to enable it?

Thank you for your assistance!

Best regards,

[eda4github]

My personal experience with the search of better RSS Readers Android/W10 including RSSGuard at reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rss/comments/1lbw8id/comprehensive_list_of_rss_readers_for_android/

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Comprehensive List of RSS Readers for Android & Windows 10 (2025)

I will update this post reflecting your experiences, frustrations, and expectations, if you have any.

The more feedback users provide, the more valuable and accurate the results will be

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PART 1 : A SAMPLE Of Feature Check List for the RSS Readers

Feed Management

    Subscribe to multiple feeds and organize them into folders or categories

    Import/export OPML files

Configurable Features for Offline Access

    Full-text articles vs. summaries with customizable display options (list/grid view)

    Support for multimedia content (images, videos)

    Mark articles as read/unread, star/save for later, and comment on articles (if available)

    Search functionality and filter articles by date, category, or keywords

Integration

    Send articles in full to other apps on the phone

    Calendar integration for scheduling reading time

    Advanced filtering and AI, including natural language processing for summarizing articles

    Text-to-speech functionality

    Automatic translation of articles and support for multiple languages

    Daily/weekly digests of unread articles

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PART 2 : A SAMPLE Of RSS Readers

(As of 19 June 2025)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_feed_aggregators

https://search.f-droid.org/?q=RSS&page=2&lang=en

https://github.com/search?q=%22rss+readers%22&type=repositories&s=stars&o=desc

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My journey for the Ideal RSS Readers for Android & W10
Must Have Offline Feature (Gathers the full text in the first instance so that it lets me read it OFFLINE) & ad free

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Windows 10

========================

Started first with Thunderbird (W10):

-No configuration options

-No full text option

-Dropped

Then discovered the Raven Reader:

-Good interface

-No longer maintained

-No full text feature

-Dropped

Next, I found RSSGuard:

-Does Not Provides the “full text” feature for offline reading

-developer has no commitment to improve it unless he gets a full salary

=======================

Android

=======================

RSS Reader feature of a podcast player (PodcastRepublic):

-Always provides the “full text” function which is a must for me

-Not enough options to configure the RSS Reader or improvement and or add features at all

Been using it primarily as a podcast player, with the RSS Reader, as a bonus

-I wish the RSS Reader configuration could be improved to accommodate additional settings and new features added

Developer is very responsive to any inquiries

I still have it

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chaski-app

"It is no longer being maintained and features a poor interface design
decided to drop it

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Your News

There are many basic features missing, which has led to my frustration with using it. As a result, I have decided not to continue using it

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-FocusReader- Lot's of complaints, not commitment to improve it more than once a year provided you pay for it

Not responding the issues I have raised

decided to drop it

and replace it with the best one I have ever come across as follows

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My favorite one is Handy Reading

Handy Reading
V.0.19.21
https://github.com/yanus171/Handy-News-Reader/releases/download/v1.19.21/ru.yanus171.feedexfork_googleRelease_0.19.21_331.apk

https://handynewsreader.blogspot.com/

-The best one I have ever tried
-Many advanced Features
-Auto BackUp
-Advanced Filtering
-full articles instead of RSS excerpts
-adjust brightness level
-notification on important articles
-subscribe non-RSS websites
-customized Action Bar and in-article menu
-refresh progress bar
-set data caps per single refresh, image max. weight and limit per single article
-automatically remove in-article ads and all the other unwanted parts of content (e.g., “related stories” section, about the author, social network sharing buttons...)
-10 or more images per post retrievable or you could customize
-Free, Maintained Regularly
-Developer is contactable & helps you out if needed within a short time (less than few hours for me)
Lot's of options & customization (Many more than I have ever seen in others)

currently using happily

Would you please share your favorites and compare yours against this one?