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How do I unsubscribe from RSS feeds in Safari?

I read your earlier article on how to subscribe to RSS feeds in Safari - thanks! - but now I have the opposite question: How do I unsubscribe to RSS feeds with Safari?


Dave's Answer:

One of the interesting features of modern Web browsers is how they treat RSS feeds as regular bookmarks, even as they clearly handle them differently. Safari's a prime example: bookmark an RSS feed and you'll find that the browser sneaks out and checks for new content, updating the unread article count in parens that's associated with that bookmark. Magic!

(actually, you can change how often that happens by going to Preferences --> RSS but "magic" sounds more exciting, doesn't it?)

The question is: how do you unsubscribe from an RSS feed in Safari? The answer: exactly how you'd delete any other bookmark.

Let me show you.

First off, notice I subscribe to TechCrunch and here you can see there are 41 new articles that I haven't seen:

mac safari delete rss subscription 1

(the red highlighted icon is referenced later in the article. For now, just pay attention to the "TechCrunch (41)" bookmark entry)

To delete these RSS subscription bookmarks that appear on the bookmarks bar is a breeze: just hold down the Control key when you click on the bookmark:

mac safari delete rss subscription 2

You can see that the last entry on the contextual menu here is "Delete". Choose it and *poof* the bookmark and subsequent RSS subscription vanishes.

But what if it's in your bookmarks menu?

mac safari delete rss subscription 3

Here you can see my subscription to CrunchGear reveals I have 20 unread articles. But I can't Control-click on it because it's in a menu. Hmmm...

The solution is that you need to delve into the Safari bookmark manager. That's accessible by clicking on the tiny "open book" icon that appears on your bookmarks bar, on the very left. You can see it in the first screen shot in this article, circled in red.

The bookmarks manager area is a bit tricky, but just pay attention to the left side for a second. You'll see:

mac safari delete rss subscription 4

As I have done, click on "All RSS Feeds". Now the window expands and shows you all your RSS feed bookmarks, regardless of where you've put them:

mac safari delete rss subscription 5

In this case, I'm going to unsubscribe from CrunchGear by Control-clicking on that particular entry:

mac safari delete rss subscription 6

Choose "Delete" and... done!


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Categorized: Mac OS X Help   (Article 9576, Written by )
Tagged: apple mac safari, mac os x, rss readers, safari browser, subscription management
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Reader Comments To Date: 1

Annette said, on December 21, 2012 12:50 PM:

Thank you!!! That annoying RSS feed is gone! No more spinning wheels continually loading and loading.
Happy dance . .

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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