Leaving NetNewsWire

On the Mac, choose File › Export Subscriptions…. The file it writes is OPML and holds, in their words, “all your subscriptions”.

If you have more than one account set up in the app, NetNewsWire asks which account to export — an iCloud account and a Feedbin account are separate lists, and it will not merge them for you.

NetNewsWire 6 and up can sync feeds and read or starred state through iCloud, at no cost. Two things follow, and only one of them is usually said out loud.

The first: it is Apple-only. There is no iCloud client on Windows, Android or Linux worth reading in, so the queue exists on the devices Apple makes and nowhere else.

The second: it can be slow, and their FAQ says so plainly — “iCloud syncing can only go at the speed of iCloud. Sometimes iCloud will limit how much data it will send, which means syncing can take longer.” It names importing a lot of feeds, or adding a new device, as when that is most likely.

What their FAQ does not state is any maximum number of feeds. You will find a figure of around three hundred repeated in forum threads; we have not found it in a primary source, so it is not stated as fact here.

NetNewsWire 6 speaks Feedbin, Feedly, Inoreader, BazQux, NewsBlur, The Old Reader and FreshRSS besides iCloud. Adding one of those as an account and importing your OPML into it moves the queue off iCloud and onto something a Windows or Android device can also read — with the same app, the same keyboard shortcuts and the same list.

Delete the iCloud account in NetNewsWire only after the new one has synced and you have looked at it. Two accounts side by side for a week costs nothing.

OPML is a list of feeds and folders. It is not a backup of your reading, and every reader is vague about this in the same way, which causes the same disappointment every time.

An OPML file opens the whole category. Any of these will import it:

• Feedbin — $70/year. Supported natively by NetNewsWire, and the sync account most other readers support first.
• Inoreader — Free tier with ads, around $90/year for the full one. Also supported natively.
• FreshRSS — Free and self-hosted. If you have a server, this is the no-subscription answer, and NetNewsWire speaks it.

Lantery is a sync service with its own reader, built for people who use more than one kind of computer — a Mac at home and Windows or Linux at work, or a phone that is not the same brand as the laptop. It keeps one reading queue across all of them, and works inside the reader apps you already use over the Google Reader API, so NetNewsWire, Reeder Classic and Unread can point at it.

It is not open to sign-ups yet. Accounts are invited by hand while the sync API is being proved against real exports. If you need a reader today, take the file to one of the options above — that is a straight answer, not modesty.

Export is free on every plan, forever, including after a subscription ends. That sentence is in the terms, not only here.