---
name: "liferea"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "liferea"
version: "1.16.12-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/liferea"
---

# liferea(1)

GTK desktop news aggregator

## NAME

Liferea - GTK desktop news aggregator

## SYNOPSIS

**liferea** \[*OPTIONS*\]

## DESCRIPTION

**Liferea** (Linux Feed Reader) is an aggregator for online news feeds.  It can be used to maintain a list of subscribed feeds, browse and search through their items and displays their contents. Additionally Liferea allows one to sync subscriptions and read headlines with online accounts of TinyTinyRSS and TheOldReader.

## OPTIONS

Liferea options:

- **-v, --version**

  Print version information and exit.

- **-h, --help**

  Display a option overview and exit.

- **-a, --add-feed=*URI***

  Add a new subscription URI which can be a feed or website URL.

- **-w, --mainwindow-state=*STATE***

  Start Liferea with its mainwindow in STATE: shown, hidden.

- **-p, --disable-plugins**

  Start with all plugins disabled.

- **--debug-all**

  Print debugging messages of all types.

- **--debug-cache**

  Print debugging messages for the cache handling.

- **--debug-conf**

  Print debugging messages of the configuration handling.

- **--debug-db**

  Print debugging messages of the configuration handling.

- **--debug-gui**

  Print debugging messages of all GUI functions.

- **--debug-html**

  Enables HTML rendering debugging. Each time Liferea renders HTML output it will also dump the generated HTML into $XDG\_CACHE\_DIR/liferea/output.html.

- **--debug-net**

  Print debugging messages of all network activities and display the HTTP/S User-Agent string.

- **--debug-parsing**

  Print debugging messages of all parsing functions.

- **--debug-update**

  Print debugging messages of the feed update processing.

- **--debug-vfolder**

  Print debugging messages of the search folder matching.

## DBUS INTERFACE

To allow integration with other programs **Liferea** provides a DBUS interface for automatic creation of new subscriptions. The script **liferea-add-feed** is a convenient way to use this interface. Just pass a valid feed URL as parameter and the feed will be added to the feed list. You can also pass non-feed URLs to use feed auto discovery. See the EXAMPLES section.

## ENVIRONMENT

- **http\_proxy (for HTTP connections)**

  **https\_proxy (for HTTPS connections)**

  If defined and a proxy is not specified in the **Liferea** preferences (which uses the proxy settings provided by dconf), their value will be used as proxy URIs. Both are used by many common CLI tools, so make sure to export them in a dedicated subshell.

- **LIFEREA\_FEED\_CMD\_TIMEOUT**

  If defined, overrides the default timeout for feed generating commands with the number of seconds given in this variable. It must be an integer value greater than zero; invalid values will be ignored.

- **LIFEREA\_UA\_ANONYMOUS**

  If defined, randomizes and anonymizes the default HTTP/S User-Agent string.

- **LIFEREA\_UA**

  If defined, its value replaces the default HTTP/S User-Agent string.

LIFEREA\_UA has always precedence over LIFEREA\_UA\_ANONYMOUS, so the latter can be safely defined in global shell initialization files.

## EXAMPLES

- $ http\_proxy="http://proxy.example.com:3128" liferea

  ```
  $ http_proxy="http://username:password@proxy.example.com:3128" liferea
  ```

  Will alter each outgoing request to use proxy.example.com on port 3128 as proxy. If DNS resolution does not work, an IP address can be used instead.

- $ LIFEREA\_UA\_ANONYMOUS=1 liferea --debug-net

  Will alter each outgoing HTTP/S request to randomize **Liferea**'s version and hide the operative system in use. In addition, prints the HTTP/S User-Agent and all outgoing network requests.

- $ LIFEREA\_UA="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86\_64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0" liferea

  Will alter each outgoing HTTP/S request to pose as Firefox on Linux.

- $ liferea-add-feed "feed:https://www.example.com/feed.rss"

  ```
  $ liferea --add-feed "https://www.example.com/feed.rss"
  ```

  Subscribe to "example.com/feed.rss". Remember to supply a valid and correctly escaped feed URL as parameter. Please note that **Liferea** needs to be running for **liferea-add-feed** to work.

## FILES

- $XDG\_CONFIG\_DIR/liferea/feedlist.opml

  Contains the current list of subscriptions.

- $XDG\_CONFIG\_DIR/liferea/liferea.css

  Stylesheet that can be used to override default HTML style.

- $XDG\_DATA\_DIR/liferea/liferea.db

  SQLite3 database with all subscriptions and headlines.

- $XDG\_DATA\_DIR/liferea/plugins/

  User-installed plugins are stored here. You can either manually put plugins here or use the plugin installer in Liferea.

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Lars Windolf \<lars.windolf@gmx.de\>.

Updated on Nov 24, 2021 by Lorenzo L. Ancora \<admin@lorenzoancora.info\>.