How to See Gmail Emails in an RSS Reader

If you love your RSS feed reader, then why not stick your emails in there too? Below are instructions for finding the Gmail feed address for any label in your Gmail account.

What this means is that you can set up your feed reader to notify you when messages arrive in a specific label, like a custom one or any other label; it doesn't have to be your Inbox folder.

Gmail's Atom feeds, of course, require authentication, meaning you have to be able to login to your Google account through the feed reader in order to fetch the messages. Not all RSS feed readers support this, but Feedbro is one example to get you started.

Getting the specific RSS feed URL for your Gmail messages can be tricky. You need to use very specific characters in the URL in order for it to work with labels.

To read your Gmail messages in an RSS feed reader can be accomplished by using the following URL:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/

That URL works with messages in your Inbox folder only.

The structure of the Gmail Atom URL for other labels needs to be set up carefully. Below are different examples that you can adapt to fit your own labels:

• If your label is free from spaces, like Spam or a custom one such as Amazon, then this is the URL you'd use to read those Gmail messages in the RSS reader:
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/spam
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/amazon
  • As you can see, just the label name needs to be added to the end of the same URL used for Inbox messages.
• However, if there are spaces in your label, like Amazon Emails, then structure it like this with the hyphen separating the words:
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/amazon-emails
  • This works for multiple spaces too, like a label called Amazon Emails Are Here:
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/amazon-emails-are-here
• If you have special characters in your labels, like Amazon Emails (Shipping) or Amazon & Other Sites, just use them as-is. Be sure to put a hyphen in between any spaces:
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/amazon-emails-(shipping)
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/amazon-&-other-sites
• Slashes are a little different. If you have slashes in your label, such as Bank/Finances/Money/etc., then treat each slash as a space (and use a hyphen like the above examples):
  • https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/feed/atom/bank-finances-money-etc.