feed2email is a headless RSS/Atom feed aggregator that sends feed entries via email. It was initially written as a replacement of rss2email and aims to be simple, fast and easy to use.
- Command-line feed management (add, remove, enable/disable)
- Feed fetching caching (Last-Modified and ETag HTTP headers)
- Feed autodiscovery
- OPML import/export of feed subscriptions
- Email sending with SMTP, Sendmail (or compatible MTA) or by writing to a file
- text/html and text/plain (Markdown) multipart emails
- Permanent redirection support for feed URLs
$ gem install feed2email
If the above command fails due to missing headers, make sure the following packages for curb and sqlite3 gems are installed. For Debian, issue:
$ sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev libsqlite3-dev
Warning: If you are updating from an earlier version of feed2email, make
sure you run feed2email-migrate
to migrate its data before using it.
Through a YAML file at ~/.feed2email/config.yml
.
Edit it with the config
command:
$ # same as "f2e c"
$ feed2email config
Note: The command will fail if the EDITOR
environmental variable is not
set.
Each line in the configuration file contains a key-value pair. Each key-value
pair is separated with a colon, e.g.: foo: bar
recipient
(required) is the email address to send email tosender
(required) is the email address to send email from (can be any)send_method
(optional) is the method to send email with and can befile
(default),sendmail
orsmtp
send_delay
(optional) is the number of seconds to wait between each email to avoid SMTP server throttling errors (default is10
; use0
to disable)max_entries
(optional) is the maximum number of entries to process per feed (default is20
; use0
for unlimited)
log_path
(optional) is the absolute path to the log file (default istrue
which logs to standard output; usefalse
to disable logging)log_level
(optional) is the logging verbosity level and can befatal
(least verbose),error
,warn
,info
(default) ordebug
(most verbose)log_shift_age
(optional) is the number of old log files to keep or the frequency of rotation (daily
,weekly
,monthly
; default is0
so only the current log file is kept)log_shift_size
(optional) is the maximum log file size in megabytes and it only applies whenlog_shift_age
is a number greater than zero (default is1
)
This method simply writes emails to a file (named after the recipient
config
option) in a path that you specify.
mail_path
(optional) is the path to write emails in (default is~/Mail/
)
For this method you need to have Sendmail or an MTA with a Sendmail-compatible interface (e.g. msmtp, Postfix) set up and working in your system.
sendmail_path
(optional) is the path to the Sendmail binary (default is/usr/sbin/sendmail
)
For this method you need to have access to an SMTP service. Mailgun has a free plan.
smtp_host
(required) is the SMTP service hostname to connect tosmtp_port
(required) is the SMTP service port to connect tosmtp_user
(required) is the username of your email accountsmtp_pass
(required) is the password of your email account (see the warning below)smtp_starttls
(optional) controls STARTTLS (default istrue
; can also befalse
)smtp_auth
(optional) controls the authentication method (default islogin
; can also beplain
orcram_md5
)
Warning: Unless it has correct restricted permissions, anyone with access in
your system will be able to read config.yml
and your password. To prevent
this, feed2email will not run and complain if it detects the wrong permissions.
To set the correct permissions, issue chmod 600 ~/.feed2email/config.yml
.
Add some feeds:
$ feed2email add https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
Added feed: 1 https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
$ # same as "feed2email add https://github.com/agorf.atom"
$ f2e a https://github.com/agorf.atom
Added feed: 2 https://github.com/agorf.atom
Passing a website URL to the add
command will have feed2email autodiscover any
feeds in that page:
$ f2e add http://www.rubyinside.com/
0: http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/ "Ruby Inside" (application/rss+xml)
Please enter a feed to subscribe to: 0
Added feed: 3 http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/
$ f2e add http://thechangelog.com/137/
0: http://thechangelog.com/137/feed/ "The Changelog » #137: Better GitHub Issues with HuBoard and Ryan Rauh Comments Feed" (application/rss+xml)
1: http://thechangelog.com/feed/ "RSS 2.0 Feed" (application/rss+xml)
Please enter a feed to subscribe to: 1
Added feed: 4 http://thechangelog.com/feed/
$ # cancel autodiscovery by pressing Ctrl-C
$ f2e add http://thechangelog.com/137/
0: http://thechangelog.com/137/feed/ "The Changelog » #137: Better GitHub Issues with HuBoard and Ryan Rauh Comments Feed" (application/rss+xml)
Please enter a feed to subscribe to: ^C
Note: When autodiscovering feeds, feed2email lists only those that don't already exist in your feed subscriptions.
The feed list so far:
$ # same as "f2e l"
$ feed2email list
1 https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
2 https://github.com/agorf.atom
3 http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/
4 http://thechangelog.com/feed/
Subscribed to 4 feeds
A feed can be disabled so that it is not processed when feed2email process
runs with the toggle
command:
$ # same as "f2e t 1"
$ feed2email toggle 1
Toggled feed: 1 DISABLED https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
It can be enabled with the toggle
command again:
$ # same as "feed2email toggle 1"
$ f2e t 1
Toggled feed: 1 https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
It can also be removed from feed subscriptions permanently:
$ # same as "f2e r 1"
$ feed2email remove 1
Remove feed: 1 https://github.com/agorf/feed2email/commits.atom
Are you sure? (yes/no) yes
Removed
feed2email supports importing and exporting feed subscriptions as OPML. This makes it easy to migrate to and away from feed2email anytime you want.
Export feed subscriptions to feeds.xml
:
$ # same as "f2e e feeds.xml"
$ feed2email export feeds.xml
This may take a bit. Please wait...
Exported 3 feed subscriptions to feeds.xml
Import feed subscriptions from feeds.xml
:
$ # same as "f2e i feeds.xml"
$ feed2email import feeds.xml
Importing...
Feed already exists: 2 https://github.com/agorf.atom
Feed already exists: 3 http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/
Feed already exists: 4 http://thechangelog.com/feed/
Nothing was imported since all feeds already exist. Let's remove them first and then try again:
$ f2e r 2
Remove feed: 2 https://github.com/agorf.atom
Are you sure? (yes/no) yes
Removed
$ f2e r 3
Remove feed: 3 http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/
Are you sure? (yes/no) yes
Removed
$ f2e r 4
Remove feed: 4 http://thechangelog.com/feed/
Are you sure? (yes/no) yes
Removed
$ f2e l
No feeds
$ feed2email import feeds.xml
Importing...
Imported feed: 1 https://github.com/agorf.atom
Imported feed: 2 http://www.rubyinside.com/feed/
Imported feed: 3 http://thechangelog.com/feed/
Imported 3 feed subscriptions from feeds.xml
$ # same as "f2e p"
$ feed2email process
When run, feed2email will go through your feed list, fetch each feed (if necessary) and send an email for each new entry. Output is logged to the standard output, unless configured otherwise.
When a new feed is detected (which is the case when feed2email runs for the first time on your feed list), all of its entries are skipped and no email is sent. This is so that you don't get spammed when you add a feed for the first time.
Issue feed2email help
(f2e h
) or just feed2email
(f2e
) at any point to
get helpful text on how to use feed2email.
Using feed2email and want to help? Let me know how you use it and if you have any ideas on how to improve it.
Licensed under the MIT license (see LICENSE.txt).
Aggelos Orfanakos, http://agorf.gr/