Use Gmail to view RSS feeds

How do I …. use Gmail to view RSS feeds?

Google’s Gmail (at mail.google.com) is a useful online option for sending and receiving messages. It can also be used as an RSS feed reader. RSS feeds are quick updates in text form that come from pre-selected favorite sites or blogs. Think of feeds as headlines that let you jump to new content recently posted on a site.

Gmail uses a little horizontal bar right above your inbox. It calls that bar Web Clips. Unless you do something, it fills the bar with assorted headlines from some default sites, including Google’s own blogs.

After creating a Gmail account, to see RSS feeds you need to go to your mail page then look for the Settings choice at the top of the page. Click the Web Clips option and you’ll see a page full of different Web links that Google streams into the clips bar.

You can go to the search box and find whatever feeds you want … such as .TXT at The Spokesman-Review. Once it finds the feed link, click Add.

You will likely want to remove the set of feeds Gmail has established by default.

Close up the tabs and go back to your inbox. Now the Clips Bar will only show your feeds.

To see the next feed of your choice, go to the far right of the Clips Bar and click the forward button. That lets you move from one feed to the next, if you’ve configured several for viewing.