---
name: "rsstail"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "rsstail"
version: "2.1-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/rsstail"
---

# rsstail(1)

a console RSS reader that monitors feeds and outputs new entries

## NAME

rsstail - a console RSS reader that monitors feeds and outputs new entries

## SYNOPSIS

**rsstail** \[**OPTIONS\]... -u URL**

## DESCRIPTION

**This manual page was written for the Debian distribution**  **because the original program does not have a manual page.**

**rsstail fetches RSS feeds from specified URLs and outputs them continuously,**  **much like tail -f does with files.**

## OPTIONS

**Options can be given in any order. Options that don't have an argument can be**  **combined after a single dash.**

- **-t**

  **Show a timestamp of when the item was processed**

- **-l**

  **Show item's link**

- **-e**

  **Show item's enclosure URL**

- **-d**

  **Show item's description**

- **-p**

  **Show item's publication date**

- **-a**

  **Show item's author**

- **-c**

  **Show item's comments**

- **-g**

  **Show item's GUID**

- **-N**

  **Do not show headings**

- **-b X**

  **Limit description and comments to X bytes**

- **-z**

  **Continue even if there are XML parser errors in the RSS**  **feed**

- **-Z string**

  **Output user-specified string before all the other headings**

- **-n X**

  **Initially show only first X items**

- **-H**

  **Strip HTML tags**

- **-A username:password**

  **Authenticate against webserver**

- **-u URL**

  **URL of RSS feed to tail**

- **-i seconds**

  **Check interval in seconds (default is 15 minutes)**

- **-r**

  **Print items in reverse order**

- **-x host\[:port\]**

  **Proxy server to use**

- **-y username:password**

  **Credentials for the proxy server**

- **-P**

  **Do not exit when an error occurs**

- **-1**

  **One shot mode: check the feeds for new items, print them out and exit**

- **-v**

  **Be verbose (repeat to increase verbosity)**

- **-h**

  **Show options and their descriptions**

- **-V**

  **Show version of the program**

## AUTHOR

**This manual page was written by Rene Mayorga \<rmayorga@debian.org.sv\> for**  **the Debian system (but may be used by others).  Permission is**  **granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under**  **the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or any later version**  **published by the Free Software Foundation.**

**On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public**  **License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.**