How to Find Stale Feeds in NetNewsWire

You can find stale feeds in NetNewsWire with Dinosaurs, a view that lists subscriptions whose latest stored article is older than your chosen cutoff. You'll need a version with that feature, introduced in NetNewsWire 7.1 in June 2026, and an existing subscription list. The result is a shortlist to inspect before deleting anything.

Find stale feeds in NetNewsWire without losing quiet authors

A 200 or 304 response doesn't tell you whether a publication will ever post again. It tells you that the feed responded. NetNewsWire's official guide makes this difference explicit. My recommendation is to inspect the last article and publisher homepage before treating a successful but quiet feed as dead.

The NetNewsWire listing is the directory entry. The Dinosaurs guide supplies the controls and response-code details below. The Mac and iOS routes lead to the same kind of decision, with different menus.

1. Open Dinosaurs on your device

On a Mac, choose Window > Dinosaurs. On iPhone or iPad, open Settings, scroll to Troubleshooting, then tap Dinosaurs. If that option is missing, check the installed app version before looking for a different menu path.

You should see a list of feeds and information about their most recent stored articles. This is a cleanup view inside your reader. It doesn't scan the whole website for new pages that the publisher has never put in the feed.

2. Set the cutoff in months

The default is six months. On Mac, edit the number in the field at the top of the window or use its stepper. On iOS, tap the months bar. The guide gives 24 months as another example.

Pick a cutoff that matches your subscriptions. A daily news feed quiet for six months and a yearly research bulletin quiet for six months are different cases. For a mixed list, start with a longer interval so the first pass is easier to review, then reduce it for more frequently published material.

Changing the cutoff changes which feeds appear. It doesn't unsubscribe from them. You can inspect a stricter or looser view without committing to a deletion.

3. Read the last-article date and account

The table includes the feed name, feed URL, account, date of the last article the app has in its database and last response code. The account column matters if the same publication appears in a direct account and a syncing service.

Use Go to Feed to select it in the feed list and inspect the articles. A recent-looking headline in the publisher's website isn't enough on its own; compare it with the last article that actually reached the feed. A publisher may keep the website alive while retiring its RSS address.

An empty last-article date isn't automatically an app error. The official guide says some feeds have no stored article. That is a reason to inspect the URL and history, not a reason to invent a date for the missing content.

4. Read the response code in context

200 means the feed exists and responded. 304 means it responded that nothing had changed since the previous check. Both can belong to a finished publication whose old feed remains online.

404 means the feed wasn't found at that request. 410 says it's gone. The guide specifically points out that YouTube feeds can return 404 for several hours even when they haven't disappeared. For that case, don't turn one temporary response into a permanent unsubscribe decision.

There may also be no response code, for example when the domain no longer exists. Treat that as a different investigation from a server returning a readable error page. The missing information doesn't prove which layer failed.

5. Inspect the publisher and preserve the URL

Use Open Home Page to visit the publication's homepage. Look for a relocation announcement, an updated feed link or a post explaining the end of the publication. If the site has moved, replacing the subscription is a better outcome than simply shortening your list.

Use Copy Feed URL to keep the address when you want to investigate later. On iOS, swipe to reveal the … menu for these additional actions. On Mac, the actions are buttons at the bottom of the window.

Saving the address is helpful for a publication that posts rarely. You can remove clutter from the current account while retaining a route back to the source. Keep the publication's name with the URL so the copied address is recognizable later.

6. Delete only the subscriptions you've decided to remove

On Mac, select the feed or feeds and click Delete. On iOS, swipe the feed and use the trash button. Review the account column before removing duplicates; the two subscriptions may belong to different sync accounts.

After removing a feed, it should disappear from that subscription list. If you're using a server account, the account's syncing behavior is also part of the change. Don't assume a subscription copied into another independent local account is removed everywhere.

Known problems and targeted fixes

NetNewsWire's help identifies several cases that deserve different responses. Use the Error Log guide for failures involving downloads or syncing. A quiet publisher and an account that can't authenticate can look similar in the article list while needing different fixes.

The Error Log includes timestamps, the operation and an error message. Use those details to identify a failed account or feed. A screenshot of an old headline alone doesn't show whether the app tried to refresh it successfully.

Three cleanup variations

For a large archive, use a long cutoff first and copy URLs before deleting. The point is to separate no-longer-needed subscriptions from publications you still want to remember.

For a news folder, shorten the cutoff and inspect publishers that normally post frequently. A feed URL may have changed during a redesign, so the website's current subscription link is the more productive next stop.

For several accounts, review one account at a time. You can also compare how the same feed behaves in another reader, such as Capy Reader on Android, without calling that a solution to the original account's sync failure.

Completion checklist and next steps

• Dinosaurs shows the intended age cutoff.
• You've inspected the last article and response code for each removal.
• Relocated publications have a replacement address recorded.
• Rarely updated feeds worth retaining have their URLs saved.
• Deleted subscriptions have disappeared from the intended account.

My verdict: Dinosaurs is a good cleanup tool because it supplies dates and response codes together. Its weakness is that it can't decide whether a quiet author plans to return. For different reading setups, compare Feedreader, KrISS feed, Makagiga and the news search directory.

Sources

NetNewsWire's Dinosaurs and Error Log help pages, checked October 9, 2026. The menu paths and named temporary-feed problem come from those guides.