I've been using Feedly to manage my RSS feeds for about three years. 
When many web tools come and go in the blink of an eye, that's a heck of a long time. I first reviewed this tool shortly after the public beta opened in 2008. It's been one of my must-use tools ever since and it keeps getting better. And don't just take my word for it. With around 10,000 positive reviews and a similar number of likes on Facebook, I'm not the only one with Feedly Fever.
What is Feedly?
So what exactly is Feedly. Put simply, it's a better interface for Google Reader. Feedly is also available for Chrome, (both web app and extension), Firefox, Safari, Android, iPhone and iPad. You'll need a Google Account to get started (hasn't everyone got one these days?), but once that's done you will hardly ever need to look at Google Reader again. Once you have signed in, prepare to be amazed by Feedly's seamless integration as it imports and catalogues your feeds (known as sources in Feedly-speak). Everything you have setup in Google Reader is there, but it looks a thousand times better.
Feedly Menu Options – Part 1
Now, here is where things get tricky, because Feedly has so many features, that it will take a while to go through them all. (Don't say I didn't warn you. 🙂 ) The default Feedly interface gives you a magazine like start page with a menu along the left and another menu at the top. Here's what you'll get when you click on the left menu items.
- Cover – thumbnails, titles and descriptions for the most recent stories from the feeds you follow in the top part; a few posts from your categories in the middle;Â Twitter buzz and mentions in the bottom.
- What's New – updates from your featured sources, the latest few stories from each category and, if you've enabled it, Twitter and Facebook updates in the right column.
- Latest – my favorite view – a list of the latest updates from your sources in reverse chronological order.
- Saved – items you have saved (or starred in Google Reader).
- Category pages – links to the feed categories you use in Google Reader.
- Explore – stuff shared by some of the people you follow in Reader and Buzz.
- Contents – like a magazine contents page for your feeds.
- Shared – items you have shared.
- History – what you have looked at recently.
Feedly Menu Options – Part 2
The top navigation menu is where you can customize what you see. It includes your Google account email address, an upgrade link (which at the time of writing takes you to different versions of Feedly) and a link to the Feedly tour. More importantly, it contains a link to the edit menu (nine little squares) where you can manage your feeds. From here you can:
- subscribe to new feeds (clicking the add box brings up a menu from which you can search for feeds to add, along with some suggestions).
- create a new category by dragging and dropping a source.
- unsubscribe from feeds.
- edit subscription details (for example, if you wanted to rename your feeds to something more memorable).
- change options such as opening feeds directly on the site instead of using the built-in Feedly preview.
- mark a feed as a favorite.
- have an at-a-glance view of how many unread posts there are for each feed.
Feedly Preferences
The real biggie is the preferences menu which is where you tailor Feedly to your needs. Included in the menu are:
- your choice of start page.
- color choice for read links.
- sharing settings (Twitter, Google and emailing, including choosing a Google Apps domain to email from).
- mini-toolbar settings (more on that in a while).
- side area customization (including the inclusion of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr modules, Facebook comments and more.
- tweaks to reading, scrolling and layout functions..
Feedly In Action
This may seem like a lot to take in, but using Feedly is really simple. I have set my default startup view to latest posts. I click on a post title to see a preview. This gives me the whole post unless the originating site has partial RSS feeds enabled. In that case, I can click the preview version to see the whole post as it appears on the site. Is that awesome or what! I can share, save for later or open the post in a new tab (I'm running the Chrome web app version of Feedly) and from the regular view I can choose to mark a post as unread. I can also:
- click a like button and see how many people have liked the post – this is NOT Facebook's like and I'm still trying to find out where those likes go – possibly to my Google Reader followers as recommendations.
- Share on the major social media and social bookmarking sites .
- comment and have it show up on Facebook. This is also supposed to allow you to comment as one of your pages, but when I tested it, the feature didn't work. Posting to my personal Facebook profile worked well and I love this new feature for tighter social media integration.
- visit the page for an individual blog, by clicking on the blog title, and add it as a favorite (so it shows up higher in my featured sources). In this view you can also get information about tags applied to the blog, similar blogs, and stats for posts and followers – sweet!
- use the menu near the view title to mark all as read, refresh or customize the view.
Feedly Mini – A Great Addition
Remember that feature I said I would save for later? It's Feedly mini, a customizable menu that pops up on web pages with feeds. Click the little grey Feedly icon and you get options to like, save, email the page or share on Twitter, Facebook or your favorite sources (customizable via the preferences menu). You can see how many people are following the blog and follow it too. Using the Follow button gives you the option to add the feed to a category or mark it as a favorite. And the Feedly mini box also suggests other feeds you might like. Without a doubt, this is one of Feedly's best features, introduced since my original review, and it's one I use often.
Other Feedly Features
I also like the fact that one of my requested features has recently been implemented. Even though it doesn't always work, sometimes when you tweet from within Feedly, the person's Twitter handle appears automatically in the tweet, which is a time saver.
And did I mention that the search features are awesome?! Use the search box and not only will it find your keywords in the feeds you follow but in a selection of news sources and on Amazon, making Feedly a great research tool as well.
The only thing on my Feedly wishlist at the moment would be integration with a scheduling program like Triberr or Buffer – then I'd never need to leave the Feedly interface at all.
My final word? Feedly offers unparallelled (in my view) RSS feed management, social sharing and blog search options. If you're not using Feedly yet, you should be!
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Hi Sharon, I like the way you review apps – you break it down to all the possible attractive features. From the way you explained the goodness of Feedly, I’ll want to try it – just signing up now.
Thanks, you and Ileane always seem to have our backs covered on knowing the best productivity tools in ‘town’.
I love your writing style and will study this again.
Thanks, Stella, glad you like it. I use Feedly several times a day. It’s regularly updated and there’s always new Feedly goodness to discover. I’m pretty sure anyone who uses Google Reader can find some value in it.
I’m not a big fan of rss readers…because I don’t know how to use them properly. Feedly seems like an easy to use app. Maybe I should start using it because is so hard to keep updated on all the blogs I’m following.
Thanks fo the suggestion Sharon, nice blog by the way!
Feedly makes it simple, Mario, and if you add in the tip from Kristi Hines linked above, it’s easy to manage and share feeds.
Wow… That’s what I call a review. I’m downloading it to my android right now!
Would love you to come back and comment on any differences in the Android version, Cartess – glad you liked the review. 🙂
The features and options all seem to be the same as you posted. I just recently only started using Google Reader — but this Feedly is much easier to get around and much easier on the eyes. Quick access to Tweet or “Like”. And the ‘shortcuts’ are awesome… I’ll give more feedback once I get a handle on it.
OK, will look forward to it. 🙂
Did you get it up and running Cartess? I currently use News Rob on my Droid X and it is actually pretty frustrating because it only pulls the latest 50 articles at a time. I might as well give Feedly a whirl and see if I like it better.
With all of the personal finance, SEO, and blogs about blogging I follow, it is essential to have a good reader to keep me organized.
You’ve dissected the Feedly application very well. Features are tackled in details. This is going to be an easy tool to manage the blogs and other social media networking that you are maintaining or following. Thanks for the post!
Glad you like it, John. 🙂
Hi, Sharon.
Thanks for this insightful review. Breaking down everything in wonderfully understandable pieces makes Feedly appear very valuable indeed. As I am a lame brain when it comes to tool, software and apps, I really appreciate the way you present everything, too. I tried it before I even wrote this comment and so far I can see what you mean about finding the latest cool posts easier.
I am so dependent on my Google Reader for my blog hopping but I am going at it alphabetically, which considering that I have been adding more and more people to it, is so time consuming. So, I think I am Feedly is going to help me along amazingly. I am going to explore the app some more and discover what else I can learn from it based on your post.
Again, thanks, Sharon! It’s nice to know you here. Will check out your site soon. 🙂
Enjoy your weekend!
Kim
So glad you’re enjoying Feedly, Kim. For my personal setup, I’ve turned off Flickr and Youtube and concentrate on modules that I use more regularly. I love the at a glance view of what’s happening in my social media crowd and on the topics I’m interested in. Enjoy the holiday weekend – and I look forward to seeing you on one of my sites soon. 🙂
Well Sharon on the back of this I think it may be about time for me to start using RSS properly… Never did up till now but this looks like the perfect tool to organize the feeds i need with relative ease…
Thanks for sharing, I’m finding your discoveries very helpful 🙂
(so helpful, that you get a mention in my comluv linked post below!)
Good to know, Jym, and thanks for the mention. I recently reorganized my feeds in Feedly so they are in fewer categories. The only thing I miss in Feedly (which was in an early version) is the ability to see which feeds you interact with most (like the information in the Trends view in Google Reader). This was quite helpful in pruning feeds from time to time. But all the additional functionality makes up for it, so I’m still happy. 🙂
I haven’t heard of this feedly even before…Well Thanks Sharon for introducing this to me…I hope I will like this when I try it…
I have been using Netvibes for a very long time but I’m going to try out Feedly. You have covered Feedly very good and I am confident I will like it.
This post is so informative and well laid-out, Sharon. Feedly is a great tool, as it is so easily customized. Thanks for sharing, Sharon and Ileane.
James, Jeffrey, Nipon – glad you enjoyed it, and good luck with Feedly 🙂
John, one thing you really learn with Feedly is which blogs consistently have eye-catching headlines. If I miss a day and there are 300+ posts to look at, I only stop at the blogs that have good quality or an arresting title. Hope you enjoy using it.
Wow Sharon! You’re really doing the rounds! Also, you have absolutely outdone yourself with this post. I am really glad to see bloggers like you cultivating a culture of writing high value posts. That’s what will set you apart from the rest every time 🙂
Thanks, Ivin. That means a lot coming from you. 🙂
i never heard about freedy before, but your article tells me the whole story about that. thanks Sharon for this great effort you put here.
Thanks for giving the details of Feedly in such an ordered manner. The point to point break up of the features makes it more easy to get an insight on this successful web tool. I use Google Reader but I will surely try out this one.
It’s well worth it, Shree. Come back and let me know how you like it, OK? 🙂
I heard about this service some one year ago and actually signed up for it. For some reason I did not continue using it….. Mind you I don’t use Google Reader myself that much as I just have a bookmark of my top sites that I usually visit and go over there regardless of whether there is a new post or not. I do see the advantages of using Feedly and perhaps will save me lots of time compared to my actual procedure 🙂 Not so sure I will give Feedly another shot immediately, but thanks for reminding me about it.
I find it useful for managing lots of feeds, DiTesco. At one stage I had a couple of hundred feeds to follow, as I was following some for my clients. Now I’ve cut down to the ones I’m interested in for myself (about 100), and use Feedly in another browser to manage my clients’ feeds. I’m not sure anything will wean me off it now, as it keeps getting better. 🙂
I have being using Google Reader for quite a while now and never thought of using another service. Your in depth review sure made me try this service. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Sahron! I have just taken the guided tour of Feedly after reading your post. This is great, don’t know how I’ve missed this tool till now. Will definitely start to use it. Thanks 🙂 Susane
This is a great review for feedly…I actually haven’t heard of this before but thanks to this blog…
I tried out Feedly a few weeks ago. I liked it, but it slowed down the start up of my browser to much. Plus I didn’t like having it as the homepage so that everyone that uses our computer can see it. That’s just my two sense.
Hi Gabriel, which browser are you using? I didn’t find any slowdown, and I don’t have Feedly as my start page. I just click the icon when I want to use it.
Well I use practically ever web browser, but I mostly use Google Chrome. Having it as my homepage could have been the problem, I guess I’ll have to try it out again. 🙂
Nishadha, Susane, Viroga, James: glad you like it; enjoy Feedly. 🙂
Very nice.
Thanks for sharing this article!
Is there a possibility that I can move my feeds to feedly?
Suraj, if you’re using Google Reader, sync will be instant. If not, export an OPML file from your old feed reader, sign in to Feedly with your Google Account, and import the OPML file – your feeds should appear.
Thanks a lot for that info!
Hi Sharon,
You pick the best tools to showcase and do an excellent job of teaching how to get the most from them. I use Google Reader sporadically primarily because the information is too linear. The ability to organize them in some meaningful way is a big plus. Feedly looks like it will allow me to enjoy reading my many feeds … Kinda like driving a great car let’s you enjoy the ride!
Before I finished reading, I hopped over, added it to my Google tools, and skipped back over here to leave a comment. Thanks for another useful app, Sharon!
So glad you’re enjoying the reviews, Vernessa. I love sharing information about useful stuff (can you tell?). I still have to fully implement Kristi’s suggestion about Twitter handles instead of site names to make it even more useful.
Ah, yes, I can tell ’cause your love comes shining through! 🙂
I’m all for decluttering (as Mitch can say) and organizing. Anything (and anyone) that gets me there gets my gratitude.
Hi sharon,
Your post really helped me to understand the better feed reading. It has great details and yet it is easy to understand.
That’s what i was looking for. I will definitely share it with others.
Thanks for sharing.
I always hear about this feedly theme and some of them told me it was really great…Thanks!!!
I always heard about this feedly and now i have widen my knowledge about it…Thanks for this review…
Looks interesting. Makes me wanna try this out. Thanks for the review.
I haven’t try this service before. Just using Google HomePage to handle my interested RSS channel.
Hi…Thank you for the feedly review…I have learned a lot from the post…
I LOVE Feedly. I have a ton of car feeds are sorted by make or type of car. For instance I have my folder full of exotic car feeds, one full of Japanese cars and so on.
Speedy? I have just heard about this this.. and thank you Sharon for introducing this to me… Great article.
Hi Sharon,
I’ve been using Feedly for a few years as well and absolutely love it! However, as of a few days ago, my safari browser opens my Feedly account into a blank page and I can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong. I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing but that hasn’t work. It works on Mozilla on my PC, just not on Safari on my Mac. Any tips?
Thanks!
Vivien
Every so often, I get a display issue, Vivien, but it’s usually resolved pretty quickly. I know there were some problems with Safari in the past, but they’re listed as resolved. Has there been a recent Safari update which might have caused a new issue? If you report it to the Feedly bods via the support forum, I’m sure it will be resolved soon.
Nice post Sharon!
Very clear explanation of Feedly, for the people who still aren’t using it.
I’ve actually missed out on the whole feeds things for a long time.
I got introduced to it many many years ago by Ed Dale in the 30day challenge, you might have heared of it. But that basically meant you had to use google reader or even uglier readers. So after a while of being overwhelmed with info, I stopped all of it.
But look at it now. FB and other social-networking integration. Magazine style etc. It’s so much more user-friendly.
I know what you mean, Danny. Having an attractive interface really makes a difference. I check out many more feeds now than I did before using Feedly.
I tried out Feedly a few weeks ago. I liked it, but it slowed down the start up of my browser to much. Plus I didn’t like having it as the homepage so that everyone that uses our computer can see it.
nice article, and because of its decent looks and features feedly one of most preferable.
Does anyone know if there is a feedly subscription gadget for blogger? I have a blog lovin gadget for those who moved to that service, but I’d like afeedly gadget for ask the people who moved to feedly from google reader.