Glanceway
The Mac menu bar RSS reader, reimagined
Glanceway turns your macOS menu bar into a native RSS reader. Paste any RSS or Atom feed URL and the latest items show up in a clean dropdown list — titles, summaries, timestamps, one click to open. No browser tab, no email digest, no "catch up later" pile.
Native RSS support — paste a URL and go
Glanceway reads RSS/Atom feeds out of the box. Add a feed URL in settings, pick a refresh interval, and the app handles fetching, parsing, de-duplication, and sorting for you. Items stream into your menu bar as soon as they appear in the feed.
Because it lives in the menu bar, there's nothing to open and nothing to dismiss. You glance when you want, read when you have a minute, and ignore the rest. It's the oldest, best content-delivery protocol, back in the form it was always meant to have.
Thousands of feeds via RSSHub and rss.app
Most modern sites no longer expose RSS directly. That's why Glanceway plays well with RSSHub and rss.app — two services that turn almost any website or social feed into a proper RSS URL. Twitter/X accounts, YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, Mastodon timelines, public Telegram channels, GitHub releases — all readable as RSS, all at home in your menu bar.
Browse RSSHub's route catalog, pick what you want, paste the URL into Glanceway, done.
More than RSS — community sources too
If a site doesn't expose RSS (and even RSSHub can't reach it), Glanceway has a second way in: community-built sources. These are small JavaScript or YAML modules that fetch data from any HTTP API or WebSocket and emit items in the same format as RSS. Developers have already built sources for Hacker News, Reddit, GitHub notifications, stock quotes, crypto prices, and more — all installable in one click.
The result: one menu bar app, one consistent reading experience, whether the source is a classic RSS feed or a custom API integration.
Related Sources
Hacker News
NewsTop stories from Hacker News
Hot posts from a subreddit
GitHub Trending
DeveloperTrending repositories on GitHub
Dev.to
DeveloperTop articles from Dev.to developer community
Frequently asked questions
Does Glanceway support RSS and Atom feeds? +
Yes. Glanceway has native RSS and Atom support built in. Paste any feed URL in the app settings and items appear in your menu bar automatically.
Can I read Twitter, YouTube, or Substack in the menu bar? +
Yes — via RSSHub or rss.app, which provide RSS feeds for sites that don't expose one directly. Grab the feed URL from their catalog, paste it into Glanceway, and it reads like any other feed.
How often does Glanceway refresh RSS feeds? +
The refresh interval is configurable per source in Glanceway's settings. The app handles fetching, parsing, and de-duplication in the background.
Is Glanceway a menu bar app or a full reader? +
It lives entirely in the menu bar. Click the icon to browse items in a dropdown; click an item to open it. There is no separate window to manage.
Is Glanceway free? +
Yes — Glanceway is free to download. All core features, including native RSS support, the community source store, the AI skill, and the MCP integration, work in the free tier. The free tier caps how many sources you can install at the same time; upgrading to Pro removes that limit.
Ready for a menu bar that reads for you?
Install Glanceway, paste your first RSS URL, and turn your macOS menu bar into a quiet, always-on reader.