How to filter an RSS feed by keyword, in any reader

There are two ways to filter an RSS feed by keyword. Set up a filter in your RSS reader that keeps or hides posts with the words you choose, or follow a search feed that only carries matching posts. A reader filter works on any feed you follow. A search feed works in any reader, for free, but only on sites that offer one.

Filter in your reader, or at the source?

How do I filter an RSS feed by keyword in Feeder?

Feeder filters feeds with Rules. A Filter posts rule keeps the posts that match and hides the rest.

1. Select Rules in the left sidebar, then New rule. For one feed, you can also right-click it, choose Edit feed, open the Rules tab and select Create rule.
2. Under What should happen?, choose Filter posts.
3. Under Select feeds, pick feeds, folders or All feeds.
4. Under Match posts that, choose Contain to keep only posts with your keywords, or Don't contain to hide the posts that have them. Then type your keywords.
5. Check the Posts preview, which shows what the rule lets through, and select Save rule.

Rules act on posts that arrive after you save. Filtered posts are hidden, not deleted: open Filters above the post list and tick Filtered under Include to see them again. Filters need Plus, at $7.99 a month billed yearly or $9.99 monthly, or Professional. Prefer a video? Use keyword filters to never miss anything walks through one.

How do keywords match?

• Whole words, any capitalization. sport matches "Sport" and "SPORT", but not "sporting". Select Aa on a keyword to match its exact capitalization, so "US" doesn't match "us".
• Phrases and wildcards. climate change matches the two words together, in that order. sport* matches "sport", "sports" and "sporting".
• Any or all. Any keywords matches posts with at least one of your keywords. All keywords needs every one.
• Where to look. Tick in title, in summary or in URL. The summary is the text the feed sends with each post, so a word that only appears in the full article on the website won't match.

To combine conditions, select Add condition and choose AND or OR. For example, keep posts that contain "merger" AND don't contain "rumor". How keyword matching works in Rules has every detail, and "Must match" filters explains what happens when filters on all feeds meet filters on one feed.

How do I filter a feed without reader filters?

Many sites make a feed for a search, a category or a tag. Follow that feed instead of the whole site, and only matching posts come in. This works in any RSS reader, on any plan. Each example below had new posts on September 27, 2026:

For Reddit, add a search to a subreddit's feed, as How to set up Reddit keyword alerts shows. PubMed and arXiv searches have feeds too, in RSS feeds for research papers.

In Feeder, Google News is also a built-in source, free on every plan: select Add feed, choose Google News under Web monitoring and type your search.

Which RSS readers can filter by keyword?

Keyword filters are usually part of a paid plan. Of the readers below, NewsBlur filters on its free plan, and Miniflux is free if you host it yourself. Prices in US dollars from each company's website, September 27, 2026:

How do I get notified only about posts that match?

Filter first, then turn on notifications for that feed. Feeder doesn't notify you about posts a filter hides, so you only hear about the matches. Push and desktop notifications work on every plan: see Get notifications for new posts.

To send matches to a team chat, choose Post to Slack or Post to Microsoft Teams under What should happen? instead of Filter posts. Only posts that match your keywords go to the channel. Those rules need Professional, at $14.99 per user a month billed yearly.

Common questions

Can I filter an RSS feed for free?

Yes. Search and topic feeds from Google News, WordPress sites, Medium and hnrss.org are free and work in any reader. NewsBlur's free plan can also train stories by author, tag or title. In Feeder, keyword filters come with Plus.

Why doesn't my filter catch a word that's in the article?

Filters check what the feed sends: the title, the summary and, if you tick it, the URL. Many feeds only send the first lines of a post, so a word further down the article isn't there to match.

Can I filter an RSS feed by category or tag?

Often, at the source. WordPress sites have a feed for each category at /category/name/feed/ and for each tag at /tag/name/feed/, and many news sites have one feed per section.

How do I filter a Reddit RSS feed by keyword?

Follow a Reddit search as a feed, limited to one subreddit if you like. How to set up Reddit keyword alerts for free has the feed format.

Try Feeder

Keep the posts you care about and hide the rest, across every feed you follow, with Rules on Plus.

Feeder is an RSS reader for the web, iOS and Android, with extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge. The free plan follows up to 200 feeds, updated as often as every 30 minutes, with no ads. Plus is $7.99 a month, billed yearly, for 2,500 feeds, updates as often as every 5 minutes and e-mail summaries.

Get started with Feeder for free

Read next

• Rules: filter posts by keyword and automate actions
• How keyword matching works in Rules
• Track news about a topic, company or person
• How to set up Reddit keyword alerts for free