Feeds

Scour sources content for you automatically. Subscribe to specific feeds only when you want more control over where it comes from.

You Don't Need to Subscribe

By default, Scour searches for content matching your interests across 27,642 community-contributed sources (308 added this week).

Every source was added by a user, so when you subscribe to a feed, you're also contributing it to the community pool. Scour doesn't currently support private feeds, but it's on the roadmap.

Why Subscribe?

Subscribing gives you more control:

• Focus your sources: Your default view switches to only show content from subscribed feeds, while your interests still filter what you see within those sources.
• Prioritize specific authors: Subscribing ensures their posts are considered for your feed.
• Get feed recommendations: Scour can recommend similar sources you might have missed.

Feeds and Interests

Interests determine what content you see. Feeds determine where that content comes from.

Without subscriptions, your interests filter all 27,642 sources.

How Scour Handles Multiple Sources

When the same article appears in multiple feeds, Scour shows it once and combines the sources. You won't see duplicate entries cluttering your results.

Scour also balances content across sources. A high-volume feed posting dozens of articles a day won't drown out a small blog that posts monthly. Each time a source (domain) appears in your results, subsequent items from it receive a small penalty to ensure a diverse mix.

The "Feeds to Scour" Toggle

The filter menu () controls which sources Scour searches:

• Subscribed: Only content from feeds you follow
• All: Search all 27,642 sources on Scour

Without any subscriptions, this toggle is disabled and Scour searches everything. Once you subscribe, "Subscribed" becomes the default. Use "Save as Default" to change this.

Discovering Feeds from Posts

When you find an interesting post, you can see which feeds carry it and subscribe with one click. Select the post to reveal the action row, then tap "Feeds."

Here's an example. Notice the discussion links ("Discuss: ...") that appear when an article has conversations on sites like Hacker News, Reddit, or Lobsters:

Finding and Adding Feeds

You can browse feeds directly:

• Popular feeds (most subscribers on Scour)
• Newest feeds (recently added to Scour)

To add feeds manually, go to your Feeds page and paste URLs (RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, or website URLs). You can enter multiple URLs at once. For migrating from another reader, import an OPML file. See For RSS Users for details. When you import an OPML file, Scour also suggests interests based on your subscriptions.

Some sites don't provide RSS feeds. Scour can often extract content anyway by detecting the page structure. If feed discovery fails, Scour will let you know.

Feed Recommendations & Management

Once you have interests and subscriptions, Scour recommends feeds you might like. It looks at recent content that didn't make it into your feed because you weren't subscribed, then suggests the feeds that have the most relevant content for you. You'll find these leading the Feeds tab of your Discover page, with new suggestions also woven into your feed as you read.

Here's an example of a popular feed:

• Accept to subscribe
• Reject to improve future recommendations

Your Feeds page shows all subscriptions with recent posts. From there you can search, unsubscribe, or export as OPML.

Bookmarklet

Drag this link to your bookmarks bar:

When you're on any page with a feed (blog, news site, podcast), click the bookmarklet to open Scour's feed subscription page with the URL pre-filled.

Still have questions? Or feedback on these docs? Please let me know!