LyteByte

RSS is one the important and handy feature of the new Web 2.0 technology to keep track of all the frequently updated sites. There have been lots of readers which help to manage these RSS links so as to read all the contents of different sites in a single place. Among the RSS readers used by Lyte Byte’s subscribers, FeedDemon was in leading position followed by Google Reader. Among the lower section there was a subscriber through Microsoft Office Outlook 2007! Though I had Office 2007 installed in my computer, I never knew that Outlook has this feature.

So, I had a firsthand experience with RSS feature in Outlook 2007. This feature is similar to the RSS feature in Yahoo Mail Beta, where you have a folder to keep all your RSS subscriptions along with other mail folders. I use outlook only at office and not at home as free email providers like Yahoo don’t give free POP3 or SMTP access, however you can setup Outlook for mail providers like Gmail. So if you use Outlook on a daily basis, getting all RSS feeds in Outlook is one step higher in the process of integrating two applications.

So how does one Subscribe and Read RSS in Outlook 2007?

There are several ways to subscribe a RSS feed in Outlook 2007.

General Method:
1) Go to Tools -> Account Settings. This will show a list of settings that you can change.
2) Click RSS Feeds tab and Click ‘New’ to add a new RSS Feed.
(Note: You can see the location of the folder where your feeds are stored below the feeds box; you can change the location if you want.)

Alternate Method:
1) Under the mails folder in the right hand side of the Outlook page, right click ‘RSS Feeds’.
2) Choose ‘Add a New RSS Feed’.
3) In the Pop-up Window, enter the RSS Feed and click enter.

Another way,
1) Go to File (Alt+F) -> Folder -> Add a New RSS Feed.

Reading RSS Feeds:
Reading RSS Feeds in outlook is like reading mails, when you click a particular Feed all the posts appear in the same format as the regular email. So you can view the whole post in the reader pane. It’s as simple as that!

Importing OPML File:
If you are already using another reader and would like to transfer all the RSS Feeds to here, you can easily setup in Outlook 2007. From the current reader, export the entire RSS Feeds link in the xml format. This file is known as OPML file. After you have your OPML File, right click ‘RSS’ under ‘All Mail Items’ and click ‘Import an OPML File’. Browse and point the file location and click Ok. Now you can view all your subscribed feeds in Outlook 2007.

You can read other features about RSS in Outlook 2007 here.

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