Practical guide

Turn RSS feeds into one email digest

Normalize and deduplicate the feeds before email rendering. Write one coherent edition, preserve canonical links, and keep the full reviewed set on the web when it would overwhelm the message.^[1]^[2]

Why this gets difficult

Sending RSS items by email can reproduce the unread-count problem in a new channel. A useful email digest needs story-level grouping, editorial ranking, and a source trail—not a daily feed export.^[1]^[2]

A practical way through

Validate each feed and resolve entries to canonical HTTPS URLs.^[1]^[2]
Group syndication and repeated coverage by the underlying story.^[1]^[2]
Rank the clusters against the recipient's stated priorities.^[1]^[2]
Render a plain-text-friendly rundown and linked web original links.^[1]^[2]

An example

The situation: Twenty RSS feeds produce sixty entries, including ten copies of two releases.^[1]^[2]

What changes: The entries are normalized, the releases collapse to two stories, and independent analysis receives its own item.^[1]^[2]

What you get: The email contains a readable handful of developments instead of sixty feed cards.^[1]^[2]

What to watch for

Partial feeds may not provide enough source text for an honest summary.^[1]^[2]
Email clients vary in layout and cannot comfortably hold every reviewed item.^[1]^[2]

Sources worth keeping

Publisher-owned feeds and canonical article pages.^[1]^[2]
A parser that records source identity and handles malformed dates cautiously.^[1]^[2]
A web view for complete reviewed coverage and source inspection.^[1]^[2]

How Scottie helps

Scottie can process selected RSS feeds, group shared stories, and deliver the brief by email with the complete reviewed set linked on the web.^[3]