How To Use Feedly

May 15, 2013June 13, 2013 in Life

As many of you know, Google Reader is finito as of July 1, 2013. Sadness! You all know how much I adored the next button, right?

When presented with a conundrum like this, you can choose two different routes. Remain in complete denial until POOF, your RSS feeder has completely disappeared, taking with it all of those precious saved posts and general bloggy bits of goodness OR you can prepare yourself before you wreck yo self. I’m sure it’s no surprise that I, Sarah, Queen of the List-Making and Type A-ness, chose the latter.

So! I asked around and the two RSS readers I heard about the most were Feedly and Bloglovin. I ultimately chose to use Feedly as my RSS reader because I really love the simple, clean interface, and frankly, the term “bloglovin” bugs me. Priorities, people.

Now that I feel relatively confident with how Feedly works, I’m here to get you all set straight, if need be.

First, let me start off by saying that my first visit to Feedly wasn’t so great. After importing my feeds from Google Reader (to import your google reader feeds over to feedly, simply login to feedly using your google account), I do believe it looked a bit like this.

Yuck. Listen, I very much enjoy looking at images and graphics via my feed reeder, and this text-based list of my unread blog posts was sadder than sad. I suddenly felt like I was doing homework, not reading my favorite blogs.

So I started to play around and realized that I could view the unread blog posts in many different forms. The card view:

The full view:

Or my favorite way, the magazine view:

The above image is my Feedly home page. I love it because it isn’t jumbled, the style is very clean and modern, and I enjoy seeing the blog post thumbnails.

Now, if I want to read the full post, I just click on the title, and the post populates on the page.

When I’m finished reading the post, I can share it, save it, and/or delete it from my unread list.

And speaking of saved posts, I love accessing my saved posts in Feedly.

Such a pretty format, right?

Also, finding a blog via Feedly is super easy. Just click on “Add content” in the left sidebar, and a search bar will pop up on the right.

From there you can input specific blogs or search subjects like design, photography, DIY, or whatever floats your boat.

You can also change your viewing layout and your filters. Feel the need to ‘mark all as read’ once in while? You can do that too.

There are also some wicked keyboard shortcuts, but I’m not pretending to act like I know about those.

Want to customize? The preferences section is really robust.

Plus, you can organize all your feeds into categories. Type A alert, I repeat, TYPE A ALERT.

Now, Feedly does have one challenge that baffles me, so much so that I’ve searched message boards to make sure I’m not missing something. You can’t view your posts in strict chronological order. It’s the strangest thing! I will have a few posts listed from today, then a couple from a day before, then back to today. Please, Feedly, make that happen, mmmkay? Also, how about a ‘next’ button? That would be the Best Thing Evah.

I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface in regards to Feedly, but hopefully this will get you on the right track should you decided to use it. Let me know if you have any questions or any additional tips that I should know about in the comments. Or just feel free to share your Google Reader eulogy. RIP.

Life

47 comments

Cass
May 17, 2013 at 11:20 am

Thank you so much for this post. I signed up with theoldreader.com a while back and couldn’t get into it, and thought it was just my Google Reader love being stubborn. But your screenshots and explanations prompted me to change, and my little OCD heart is loving the way it works.
Cathy
May 18, 2013 at 9:55 am

Thanks for these tips!
I created an account a couple months ago when i read that google reader was going to close, but haven’t been back.
I think i’ll give it another shot.

thanks!
Emma rachidi
May 20, 2013 at 4:44 pm

Thanks for these tips! I tried it before but then give up for http://eldonreader.com because things were all over the place. I think they changed their interface. I’ll give it a shot again!
Darci
May 25, 2013 at 10:09 pm

Thanks for the push…actually really liking Feedly. I was not going the bloglovin’ route-horrible name!

Off topic: what font did you use to write in the pictures? Love the flow of it,
Sara
May 27, 2013 at 8:54 am

I too have been lamenting the great google reader disappearing act. Denial and worry all the way around. I’ve been saving this post to read at a later date to finally deal with this tragic loss in my life (#firstworldproblems) …. No better time then a lazy holiday to deal with this. Just integrated Feedly on Safari and my iPhone with your help. Thanks a bunch for this tutorial. Now I’m headed poolside to relish in this fun new app.

Thanks Sarah!
Pierre
June 13, 2013 at 7:48 am

Very nice article.

I use feedly since few years but I really start to use it more recently when they matched the shortcuts that we used to have in google reader to go from an article to another one quickly.

I don’t know if it is available everywhere, but with google chrome I can use the “J” and “K” to move to next/previous article quickly.
matthew d lyons
June 13, 2013 at 8:15 am

Nice. Thanks for putting this together. You touch on a number of things that I frequently answer when friends inquire about Feedly. I am sharing widely.
Madame Beatrice
June 14, 2013 at 12:04 am

I have started using Flipboard when I got an iPad last year because trying to do anything at all in a browser on this thing is torture. I tried feedly recently because Flipboard doesn’t have the categories and I soooo love that idea.
Unfortunately, Feedly we a bust in every other area. The weird sorting was one frustration, then the lack of hover text (à la xkxd and cute overload) was another, but the real kicker is that Flipboard isn’t just for RSS. I am able to log in to tumblr, Flickr—pretty much everywhere I’m following other people’s posts—and have them all right there in my boards. So I’m sticking with Flipboard, although I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever use a real computer aain!
Father Muskrat
July 1, 2013 at 5:53 pm

Thanks for this! I did it just in time.
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Marlene @ Jade and Fern
July 9, 2013 at 4:56 pm

This is such a helpful tutorial! I just started using a reader a few months ago and chose Bloglovin.’ But since every blogger and their grandmothers have been reminding us about the end of Google Reader, I heard the name “Feedly” enough that I wanted to give it a try. I LOVE the way you can categorize (absolutely a Type A personality over here).

However, I’m having trouble with something really silly and fundamental. When reading an article on Feedly, how do I get to the ORIGINAL article on the blog? I don’t want to see all the blog reader crap when I’m looking at a post, I want to go to the blog itself. Is this possible? Am I missing something really obvious?
Mama Spark
July 10, 2013 at 6:18 am

This was so helpful! Just wondering if you know how to find your URL in Feedly? It says I can “search for my blog” but I can’t figure out how to do that and get my URL from there. I want to add a follow me on Feedly button but using my blog address results in an error. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Wireless Router
July 14, 2013 at 12:02 pm

Superb site. Lots of practical information below. I am mailing this to several friends ans moreover spreading in delicious. And naturally, thank you so much with your efforts!
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July 20, 2013 at 8:38 am

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47 comments

Emma rachidi

Darci

Sara

Pierre

Madame Beatrice