NetNewsWire Blog

NetNewsWire 7.0 required macOS 26, but now we’re working on making it compatible with macOS 15.

This latest beta — either do a check-for-updates or download it manually to get it — runs on macOS 15.

So far we’ve found just a couple cosmetic glitches, but we’d like to do a lot more testing than just a few quick looks around. We appreciate all the help!

You can report bugs on the bug tracker or on the Discourse forum topic for this beta.

(If you’re reporting on the bug tracker, please be sure to specify that you’re running macOS 15, if you are, and specify which version of NetNewsWire. Thanks!)

NetNewsWire 1.0 for Mac shipped 23 years ago today! 🎸🎩🕶️

Here’s where things are on this particular February 11: we just shipped 7.0 for Mac and iOS, and now we’re working on NetNewsWire 7.0.1.

After a big release, no matter how careful we are, there are often some regressions to fix and tweaks to make right away, so we’re working on those. Here’s the milestone with the current to-do list.

Big picture: we still have a lot of bugs to fix, lots of tech debt to deal with, and lots of polish-needed areas of the app. With Brent’s retirement last year we’ve been able to go way faster on dealing with all this. We plan to keep up the pace.

Here are our current plans:

For NetNewsWire 7.1 we’re focusing on syncing fixes and improvements.

NetNewsWire 7.2 doesn’t have a focus yet. Could end up being UX fixes and polish, could be something else. Could be a potpourri, though we do prefer having a focus when possible.

We don’t have a NetNewsWire 7.3 plan yet — that’s too far out. Depends on what actually happens with 7.1 and 7.2, and it depends on what Apple adds to our to-do list at WWDC this year. (Touchscreen Macs? Folding iPhones? Big new Swift features? Who knows!)

Note that we do add and remove tickets from milestones at any time — none of this is set in stone, of course.

It’s NetNewsWire’s birthday, but that’s a day to look forward, not to look back. The very best versions of NetNewsWire are still to come!

NetNewsWire 7 for iOS 26 and up is available now on the App Store!

This version adopts Liquid Glass — and we think it’s a better looking version of NetNewsWire. We think even people who aren’t fans of Liquid Glass will agree with us. 🐣

Credit goes to Stuart Breckenridge for the design and implementation. Wonderful work! Check out the screenshots.

This version also fixes some small bugs and adds some small performance enhancements. (iOS developers might appreciate this bit: it adopts Swift structured concurrency.)

But, again, the main thing is the updated UI. It’s cool!

People who like details might enjoy this big list of UI changes from Stuart:

• [Sidebar] What was previously a UITableView is now a UICollectionView. This was needed in order to adopt modern styling across iPad and iPhone. iPad uses the .sidebar style, and iPhone uses .insetGrouped. This is similar to the behaviour you see in Mail.
• [Sidebar] The current refresh status is now located in the navigation bar as a subtitle, having previously been the footer
• [Sidebar] Toolbar buttons follow Liquid Glass standards
• [Sidebar (iPad)] Like the Mac refresh, the Feeds view floats and allows Timeline content to slide underneath
• [Sidebar] Smart Feeds and Account headers now adopt modern secondary styling
• [Sidebar (iPad)] Selected feeds have a modern capsule background and the text is bold
• [Sidebar] Folders have been entirely redesigned to match modern standards—they now have the same indentation as any other feed, but the enclosed feeds are indented further
• [Sidebar] Folders will highlight when Feeds are being dragged and dropped into them
• [Sidebar] Separators have been realigned
• [Sidebar] Unread counts are larger and are no longer backed by a filled capsule
• [Sidebar] Unread counts for folders are only displayed when the folder is closed
• [Sidebar] Swipe actions reveal icons
• [Sidebar (iPad)] Users can resize the sidebar (within reason)
• [Timeline] What was previously a UITableView is now a UICollectionView. This was needed in order to adopt modern cell styling—e.g., selected and swipe status—across iPad and iPhone.
• [Timeline] Navigation bar images have been removed
• [Timeline] Unread counts are now located in the navigation bar subtitle
• [Timeline] Adopts hierarchical text colours for titles and summaries
• [Timeline (iPad)] The search bar has been moved to the app-wide toolbar and behaves similar to the Mac search
• [Timeline (iPhone)] The search bar has been moved to the bottom toolbar
• [Timeline] The Timeline width is user adjustable (again, within reason)
• [Timeline] Timeline cells have been redesigned in Interface builder and now have the rounded corner selection style
• [Timeline] The Mark All as Read image (on both iPad and iPhone) has had alignment changes to make sure it sits in the middle of an englassified button
• [Article (iPad)] Articles can be read in three-pane view without hiding the Sidebar
• [Article (iPad)] The top toolbar inherits search capabilities
• [Article] The bottom toolbar buttons have been grouped in a 2-1-2 formation with the Next Unread button sitting in the throne seat
• [Sidebar, Timeline, Article] Visual state is restored on relaunch
• [Widgets] Home Screen widgets have been redesigned to make better use of horizontal space
• [Widgets] New Lock Screen widget with Today, Unread, Starred counts
• [About] Tending to the dark corner of the garden, the About view on iOS has been redesigned and inspired by the Credits from Vesper

NetNewsWire 7.0 for Mac is now shipping!

The big change from 6.2.1 is that it adopts the Liquid Glass UI and it requires macOS 26.

(Note to people who aren’t on macOS 26: we fixed a lot of bugs in 6.2 and 6.2.1 knowing that many people might skip, or at least delay, installing macOS 26. Also note that there’s a page where you can get old versions of NetNewsWire.)

To get NetNewsWire 7: in the app, in the NetNewsWire menu, do Check for Updates… and it will update to the new version.

If you’re not already running NetNewsWire, or prefer to update manually, you can download NetNewsWire 7.

Feedback and support

We recently switched from Slack to Discourse — we’ve got a new forum that doesn’t delete conversations. It’s nice!

And, as always, you can report bugs and make feature requests on our bug tracker.

You don’t have to bookmark either of those two URLs — they’re available in NetNewsWire’s Help menu.

PS iOS version coming soon

We’re pretty close to being finished with the iPhone and iPad version. It too adopts the Liquid Glass UI. If you want in on the TestFlight — we appreciate help testing! — you can sign up here.

PPS Screenshots

Here are dark and light mode screenshots for NetNewsWire 7 for Mac, which you’re free to use in any blog posts, social media posts, reviews, etc. (Or make your own.)

We’re dropping the Slack group as the NetNewsWire forum and switching to Discourse — here’s the new forum.

Slack’s been pretty great for us, but it does have some limitations: conversations are automatically deleted and they’re not findable on the web in the first place.

The switch to Discourse means conversations will be preserved and they will be able to benefit people for years to come. And we get to use an open web app that’s also open source. Which we like very much.

NetNewsWire 6.2 is on the App Store for iOS, and you can download the Mac version (or do NetNewsWire > Check for Updates… if you’re already running the app).

Long-time Mac users will understand when we say that this is a Snow Leopard release — it fixes a bunch of bugs, makes some things faster, and adds only a couple features.

See the release notes for Mac and release notes for iOS for more details. (They’re largely the same.)

Note also that it doesn’t adopt Liquid Glass. We’ll be doing that in NetNewsWire 7, which we’re working on now. (See The Liquid Glass Plan.)

All that said — there is one new feature of potential interest: we’ve added support for Markdown in RSS feeds. When the parser encounters a source:markdown element, we save it in the database, and the app renders the Markdown as HTML and displays it in the article view.

There aren’t many feeds that include Markdown yet, but we hope that changes! You can read more about it in Dave Winer’s Dev notes for Markdown in RSS.

While we’re not sure where this feature will take us, we have some thoughts. One is that RSS and Markdown were always destined to meet in this way, and it’s about time. :) Another is that this is a part of making posting/editing/replying over the web — as opposed to closed social networks — easier. This is part of making the web itself the social network.

Anyway. It’s a foundation! We keep going.

We’re hearing from folks eager for the Liquid Glass update to NetNewsWire. The bad news is that it’s not coming this week or next (who knows when, really) — but the good news is that it is very much in progress.

Here’s the plan:

NetNewsWire 6.2 for Mac and iOS. This is a Snow-Leopard-style release — the idea is to fix a bunch of bugs knowing that a lot of people, particularly Mac users, may be slow to upgrade to the 26es, and we want them to have something solid to use while they put off upgrading — because the release after this one will require iOS and macOS 26.

NetNewsWire 7 for Mac and iOS. This will be the Liquid Glass release, and, as noted above, it will require iOS and macOS 26.

If you’d like more details, see our milestone for NetNewsWire 6.2, which is 67% complete at this writing. Also see our NetNewsWire 7 milestone and list of milestones.

Please note that anything may change at any time! Particularly when it comes to which issues are on which milestones — things get moved around all the time.

Screenshots

If you’d like a sneak peak of what NetNewsWire 7 will look like, check out these posts by Stuart Breckenridge, who’s done great work on our Liquid Glass adoption:

Adopting Liquid Glass, Part II (NetNewsWire Mac)

Adopting Liquid Glass, Part III (NetNewsWire iOS)

We know some folks are waiting on a new TestFlight build for iOS, and we have good news — we’ve just uploaded 6.1.10 (6198), and it’s waiting on Apple review. Once reviewed it will be available on TestFlight.

Update a few hours later… The build is now available via TestFlight.

For people using NetNewsWire via TestFlight: the current TestFlight build has expired, and it will be a few days before a new build has been uploaded and reviewed by Apple.

However, you can install the current build from the App Store. It’s exact same build as the current TestFlight build that expired. It installs over your TestFlight build without affecting your data — it’s safe to do.

Note for people using the TestFlight builds — the latest build expired today (sorry about that!), but a new one (6.1.9) is waiting for App Store review. As soon as it gets through the process, you’ll have a new TestFlight build.

If you don’t want to wait, you can of course switch to the App Store build instead without losing any data.

NetNewsWire 6.1.7 for Mac is available through the standard ways — check for updates or download it directly.

Changes:

• Fix bug clearing refresh progress
• Fix bandwidth bugs with downloading web pages to find feed icons and favicons
• Update default theme with enhancements by John Gruber
• Space out requests made to openrss.org
• Send user-agent with platform, version, and build to openrss.org (and only to that site)

Note — we are working on an iOS release with the same changes that have been going into the Mac releases. If you’re willing to help test, you can sign up for the TestFlight program.

NetNewsWire 6.1.5 for iOS — which has the same bandwidth-use fixes as the recent Mac release — is available for testing now via TestFlight.

If you’re willing to help, please sign up for the NetNewsWire TestFlight program. The team appreciates your help! 🍕🎸🕶️

NetNewsWire 6.1.6 for Mac is out — do a check for updates or download it directly.

The theme of this release is using less bandwidth (and, as a consequence, less battery). It fixes a conditional GET issue and it now pays attention to Cache-Control response headers and 429 response codes.

There are also a few other small bug fixes:

• Restore toolbar button to show and hide the sidebar
• Add keyboard shortcuts for Copy Article URL and Copy External URL menu items
• Fix a few AppleScript support bugs

Note: this version requires macOS 13 and up.

Also note: the equivalent update for iOS is in testing — if you’d like to help, you can join the TestFlight program.

On his blog, Brent writes about NetNewsWire and Conditional GET issues.

Thanks so so much to everybody who’s supported the app over the years!🎩🎉 Let’s do 21 more!

On his blog, Brent writes about why NetNewsWire isn‘t available — at least not yet — on Vision Pro, and what would have to happen to get it there.

On his blog, Brent writes up his thoughts about Mastodon support in NetNewsWire.

NetNewsWire includes special integration with Reddit. A user can add their account and allow NetNewsWire to use the Reddit API, which provides more and better data than Reddit’s RSS feeds.

Unfortunately, we will have to stop using the Reddit API on June 30, 2023 because use of the Reddit API will cost money starting July 1.

While the free tier won’t go away, it will be limited to “100 queries per minute per OAuth client id” (per app).

That means we’d be limited to 100 queries per minute across all NetNewsWire users. While we don’t have metrics on Reddit use in NetNewsWire, it’s a safe bet that we would exceed that limit frequently.

Without metrics we can’t speculate on what this would cost us, but any amount is too much: NetNewsWire has no bank account.

While it might be technically possible for us to support users providing their own Reddit API key, this would not be in good faith on our part. It’s clear that Reddit CEO Steve Huffman wants apps like NetNewsWire to either stop using their API or pay for the privilege. Which is his right, of course, even though it hurts Reddit users.

Existing feeds will remain

We’re not going to remove your existing Reddit feeds. Your starred articles will remain. Articles you’ve already downloaded will remain as long as they would have anyway (old, non-starred articles get deleted eventually).

Note that Reddit does provide RSS feeds, and we’ve read nothing suggesting that they plan to stop. You will still be able to follow Reddit activity in NetNewsWire by using their RSS feeds.

NetNewsWire 6.1.2 for Mac is out — you can do a check for updates or download it directly.

NetNewsWire 6.1.2 for iOS is available via the App Store, though it may take a few hours to propagate. If you don’t see it yet, you’ll see it soon.

Both of these releases remove Twitter integration, since Twitter has suspended NetNewsWire.

Also, the iOS app icon now gets the same cool golden wings that the Mac app has. And there are a few other small bug fixes in both apps.

We’re now working on 6.2 for Mac and iOS. More goodness to come! 🎸

Twitter suspended NetNewsWire today because, according to Twitter, “This App has violated Twitter Rules and policies. As a result, it can no longer be accessed.”

We knew that Twitter access would stop working in NetNewsWire later this month anyway, as Twitter is removing the free tier access to the Twitter API.

The upshot: this just means that Twitter has stopped working a little sooner than expected. We’ll have updates to NetNewsWire soon that stop trying to connect to Twitter.

Reminder: we won’t delete your Twitter feeds. Whatever you’ve downloaded you’ll still be able to read. And any starred posts will remain (unless you delete those feeds). The feeds just won’t update.

If you see a page offering a download of NetNewsWire for Android, please remember that it’s a scam and you should definitely not install it.

We’ve seen one such page, and heard there may be more. We haven’t searched.

To be absolutely, 100% clear: there is no NetNewsWire for Android. There is no NetNewsWire for Windows. There is no NetNewsWire for Linux.

On his blog, Brent explains why we don’t take any money, not even tips, for NetNewsWire.

Twitter has just announced that it’s delaying launch of the updated Twitter API for a few more days.

Reading Twitter feeds in NetNewsWire will keep working until then.

Twitter has added a few extra days — instead of on the 9th, Twitter feeds will stop working in NetNewsWire on Monday, Feb. 13.

We also intend to have updates to NetNewsWire on that day. But, regardless of whether or not you upgrade, Twitter feeds will stop working in NetNewsWire.

Reminder: we won’t delete your Twitter feeds. Whatever you’ve downloaded you’ll still be able to read. And any starred posts will remain (unless you delete those feeds).

If you’re using NetNewsWire with Feedly syncing, this will affect you: Feedly will be conducting maintenance tomorrow (Sat, Feb. 4) starting at 6 am Pacific, for up to six hours.

For more information, and to monitor status, see status.feedly.com.