Nextcloud News is an app designed to help you manage your RSS feeds. It allows you to easily subscribe to feeds, organise them, and access content whenever you need it. The app can be installed in just a few clicks via the Nextcloud App Store and is com­pat­ible with various sync clients through the REST API.

What is Nextcloud News?

RSS feeds are a popular way to auto­mat­ic­ally retrieve content from websites like news portals, blogs or podcasts. Nextcloud News brings this func­tion­al­ity directly to your Nextcloud instance, elim­in­at­ing the need for external services that may not be as privacy-conscious as Nextcloud. As an open-source ap­plic­a­tion, it is also free from ads and paid features.

The Nextcloud News app is available on both PCs and mobile devices. The Android app can be found on the Google Play Store and F-Droid. The iOS version is available on the App Store.

What features does Nextcloud News offer?

Nextcloud News combines sim­pli­city with all the essential features you’d expect from an RSS organiser. Here’s an overview of its key functions:

  • Central man­age­ment of RSS feeds: You can subscribe to and organise your feeds directly within the Nextcloud ecosystem. This makes keeping track of all your sub­scribed content easy.

  • Automatic update of news feeds: Once new articles become available, the app auto­mat­ic­ally updates your feeds and sends you a no­ti­fic­a­tion.

  • High privacy pro­tec­tion: Unlike third-party RSS services, Nextcloud News doesn’t share any of your data with external parties. The app also benefits from Nextcloud’s strong security features.

Tip

If you opt for Managed Nextcloud by IONOS, you don’t have to worry about in­stalling, main­tain­ing, or updating your server. You’ll still have full control over your data, which is securely stored on servers in Germany.

What are the re­quire­ments for using Nextcloud News?

To ensure the Nextcloud News app runs smoothly, a few system re­quire­ments need to be met. These include the operating system, the Nextcloud instance, as well as the necessary PHP versions and ex­ten­sions. The details are listed below:

System re­quire­ments:

  • A 64-bit operating system

  • The latest stable version of Nextcloud

  • libxml version 2.7.8 or higher

PHP version and ex­ten­sions:

  • PHP version 8.2 or higher

  • Required PHP ex­ten­sions: json (for pro­cessing JSON data), simplexml and xml (for XML data), dom (for document object model ma­nip­u­la­tion), curl (for com­mu­nic­a­tion with external servers and data sources), iconv (for character encoding)

Supported databases:

  • Post­gr­eSQL from version 10

  • MariaDB from version 10.2

  • MySQL from version 8.0

  • SQLite (tech­nic­ally possible, but not re­com­men­ded)

Which clients are com­pat­ible with Nextcloud News?

Nextcloud News connects with a variety of sync clients through the REST API. It also gives you the option to integrate your own ap­plic­a­tions. Here is an overview of the com­pat­ible clients:

Client Platform Licence
RSS Guard Windows, Linux, OS/2, macOS GPL-3.0 Licence
Fluent Reader Windows, Linux, macOS BSD-3-Clause Licence
Com­mu­nique Linux LGPL-2.1 Licence
NewsFlash Linux GPL-3.0 Licence
Nextcloud News Reader Android GPL-3.0 Licence
OCReader Android GPL-3.0 Licence
Newsout Android Apache-2.0 Licence
Readrops Android GPL-3.0 Licence
CloudNews iOS BSD-2-Clause Licence
Fiery Feeds iOS, macOS -
Nextnews iOS -
News­check­er Google Chrome -
Feed­Spider Firefox OS, webOS, LuneOS MIT Licence
py3status i3wm BSD-3-Clause Licence
newsboat Unix Terminal MIT Licence
Newsie Ubuntu Touch GPL-3.0 Licence
Fuoten Sailfish OS GPL-3.0 Licence
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How to install Nextcloud News

To install the Nextcloud News app, you have several options. Like with all Nextcloud apps, the easiest way is to download it from the Nextcloud App Store. But it’s also possible to install Nextcloud News from an archive or via Git. Below, we’ll walk you through the in­stall­a­tion process via the app store:

  1. Log in to Nextcloud: Log in as an ad­min­is­trat­or to the Nextcloud interface.
  2. Go to the Nextcloud App Store: Open the app store by clicking on the account icon (top right) and selecting the Apps option from the dropdown menu.
  3. Find the News App: Use the search function to locate the app.
  4. Install Nextcloud News: Click on Download and Enable to install the app.
Image: News in the Nextcloud App Store
You can find the Nextcloud News app in the App Store under the 'Mul­ti­me­di­a' category.
Note

Before in­stalling the News App, make sure your in­stall­a­tion meets all the app’s re­quire­ments. To enable feed updates, you’ll need to set up Nextcloud CronJobs. CronJobs can be con­figured, for example, using Cron or WebCron.

How to use Nextcloud News

The app has an intuitive, user-friendly interface, making it easy to use even if you have no prior ex­per­i­ence. Here’s a quick guide to getting started:

How to subscribe to a feed

  1. Copy the link of the RSS feed you want to subscribe to. You can usually find the URLs of relevant feeds using a search engine.
  2. Open the News App by clicking on the app icon in the Nextcloud menu bar.
  3. Click on the “+ Subscribe” button in the left sidebar and then paste the link of the RSS feed.
  4. Finally, click the blue “Subscribe” button to add the feed.
Image: Subscribing to an RSS Feed with Nextcloud News
If you want to, you can organise your added news feeds into folders in Nextcloud News.

How to access unread articles

Once you open the app, click on the Unread Articles section to view posts you haven’t read yet. This will work on both computers and mobile devices.

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