For over six months, I’ve used Telegram instead of Reeder as my main way to read RSS feeds. RSSHub and my self-hosted FeedLantern fetch the feeds, which a bot translates when needed and sends to Telegram. Short posts are easier to skim in a message stream, but a flood of updates can bury important items. So I’ve split my subscriptions into four channels by update frequency and how closely I follow them: I check the priorities first, then browse the rest. FeedLantern’s Chinese or bilingual feeds also help me quickly screen English-language papers before returning to the originals for a closer read. The workflow suits me better, though storing messages on Telegram means it’s no longer entirely self-hosted. For now, I’m comfortable with that trade-off.
More than a year ago, I wrote an article called “An RSS Setup: RSSHub + WeWe RSS + FreshRSS + Reeder”, about how I used RSS to keep up with information. Back then, I gathered updates from various sources and read them in Reeder. Now I use Telegram as my reading hub, and I’ve replaced PolitePol with my self-hosted PolitePol with FeedLantern · 订阅灯.
I’ve been using this Telegram-based setup for more than six months. Recently, I added translation to FeedLantern, so English feeds can now be turned into Chinese or bilingual versions. It’s worked well for me, so I thought it was about time to write this long-overdue update.
With this change, I’ve become more focused on what happens after information comes in: as updates keep piling up, how do I keep the ones that really matter in sight?
Making Telegram my reading hub
I chose Telegram first of all because it was already one of my go-to sources for news and information. Alongside the feeds I subscribe to, I follow a few news channels too. Bringing RSS into the mix lets me do most of my daily reading in one app, with less app-switching.
Another reason is that a message stream suits the kind of content I subscribe to. In my old Reeder workflow, getting from the subscription list to an item and then to its full content meant navigating two or three levels; on desktop, that often meant a three-column layout. But most of what I subscribe to is just a headline, or a headline with a short summary. Switching back and forth between the list and the article just to read a few lines felt like unnecessary hassle.
With Telegram, I can put this kind of content straight into a short message. The headline and summary unfold in the message stream, so I can read them as I scroll and open the original only if I’m interested. For short pieces like these, a single message is enough to convey everything, and I have fewer things to click and fewer screens to switch between. That more direct presentation is one of the main reasons Telegram feels more comfortable to use than Reeder.
I still rely mainly on RSSHub. If a site offers an RSS feed, I use it as is; when I need to turn a webpage into a feed, I use FeedLantern. It can detect page content automatically, and I can also adjust the feed rules visually.
The feeds are then sent to Telegram channels by RSS-to-Telegram-Bot. For English feeds that need translating, I run them through FeedLantern first to generate Chinese or bilingual versions, then pass them on to the bot.
The workflow is straightforward: get the feeds → translate when needed → send them via the bot → read them in Telegram.
Once everything was brought into one place, a new problem emerged: updates in each channel became a single message stream. With my setup, I can’t browse items by feed the way I could in Reeder. If I put everything in one channel, the most active sources quickly take over, and important updates that appear only occasionally can easily get buried.
Give different kinds of information their own reading space
My solution is to split things across channels. But sorting only by topics like “academia” and “life” isn’t enough. Even within academic content, new papers from general journals and updates from authors I follow closely arrive at different rates, and deserve different amounts of my attention.
So I consider two things at once: how often a source posts, and how important it is to me.
The Library and the Magazine
I put feeds from journals like Science, Nature, Cell, and PNAS in “The Library.” There are lots of updates here, so it’s a good place to browse and see what’s been published recently.
Feeds from authors I follow closely, along with those related to my own research, go in “The Magazine.” There may not be many updates, but each one is worth paying attention to. If they were mixed in with the flood of journal updates, I’d have to search through everything to find them. In a separate channel, I see the things I care about most as soon as I open it.
Both channels are about research literature, but they serve different reading habits: the Library is for broad browsing, while the Magazine is for keeping up with a few things closely.
Forum Roundup and My Corner
I use the same approach for my other subscriptions. There are lots of forum posts, and most don’t need to be read one by one, so I put them in “Forum Roundup” and check in when I have time to see what people are discussing.
The bloggers and other sources I follow deliberately don’t post as often, and their content matters more to me, so they go in “My Corner.” They don’t have to compete for space in the same stream as high-volume forum posts.
My four RSS reading channels: My Corner, The Magazine, The Library, and Forum Roundup.
The image above shows the four channels I use: “My Corner” and “The Magazine” hold updates I follow closely, while “The Library” and “Forum Roundup” collect content that’s better suited to broad browsing. Keeping them separate lets me check the updates I care about first, then decide whether to catch up on the rest.
This hasn’t reduced the number of feeds I follow, but it has given different kinds of information their own places. I no longer have to give every new message the same level of attention.
Filter in Chinese, then return to the original for a closer read
Splitting feeds into channels keeps different sources from getting mixed together, but there’s still a lot in “The Library.” That’s why I recently added translation to FeedLantern.
Journals like Nature, Cell, and Science all offer RSS feeds. As a non-native English speaker, I still spend a fair amount of time going through large numbers of English headlines and summaries. That’s especially true during the initial screening stage, when I’m only trying to decide whether a paper is relevant to my research—not yet whether I want to read it closely.
Now I can give FeedLantern a feed URL and get a Chinese or bilingual version. I skim in Chinese first to pick out papers that might be useful, then return to the original for a closer read. This makes the initial screening much less demanding linguistically and leaves me more time for the material that really needs careful understanding.
Channel organization and translation each help with a different part of the reading process: the former makes important updates easier to spot, while the latter helps me decide more quickly whether a paper is worth pursuing.
The trade-offs behind the convenience
Compared with my previous setup, I still get the benefits of having information in one place and being able to control how often it’s fetched, and I still use self-hosted services to collect and process feeds. But now that Telegram is my reading hub, I’ve had to rethink what “fully self-hosted” really means.
Messages sent to channels are stored on Telegram’s servers, and reading them depends on Telegram too. It makes keeping up with information much more convenient, but it also means I’m entrusting an external platform with storing this content. That’s a real difference from my previous setup.
After more than six months, I’m comfortable with that trade-off for now. The channels separate out the updates I want to keep an eye on, and translation speeds up my initial screening, leaving me more time for articles worth reading closely. This workflow feels smooth enough for me.
If you use Telegram regularly, you could try bringing your RSS feeds into it. When deciding how to split things into channels, start with your own reading habits: what do you want to see right away, and what can wait until you have time to browse? Once you’ve figured that out, it’s much easier to make the tools work for you.
As an aside, I’ve given up on RSS feeds for WeChat Official Accounts because they’re just too unreliable. I’ll browse the articles WeChat recommends when I have some free time, but Telegram is still my main way of keeping up with information.
More than a year ago, I wrote an article called “An RSS Setup: RSSHub + WeWe RSS + FreshRSS + Reeder”, about how I used RSS to keep up with information. Back then, I gathered updates from various sources and read them in Reeder. Now I use Telegram as my reading hub, and I’ve replaced PolitePol with my self-hosted PolitePol with FeedLantern · 订阅灯.
I’ve been using this Telegram-based setup for more than six months. Recently, I added translation to FeedLantern, so English feeds can now be turned into Chinese or bilingual versions. It’s worked well for me, so I thought it was about time to write this long-overdue update.
With this change, I’ve become more focused on what happens after information comes in: as updates keep piling up, how do I keep the ones that really matter in sight?
Making Telegram my reading hub
I chose Telegram first of all because it was already one of my go-to sources for news and information. Alongside the feeds I subscribe to, I follow a few news channels too. Bringing RSS into the mix lets me do most of my daily reading in one app, with less app-switching.
Another reason is that a message stream suits the kind of content I subscribe to. In my old Reeder workflow, getting from the subscription list to an item and then to its full content meant navigating two or three levels; on desktop, that often meant a three-column layout. But most of what I subscribe to is just a headline, or a headline with a short summary. Switching back and forth between the list and the article just to read a few lines felt like unnecessary hassle.
With Telegram, I can put this kind of content straight into a short message. The headline and summary unfold in the message stream, so I can read them as I scroll and open the original only if I’m interested. For short pieces like these, a single message is enough to convey everything, and I have fewer things to click and fewer screens to switch between. That more direct presentation is one of the main reasons Telegram feels more comfortable to use than Reeder.
I still rely mainly on RSSHub. If a site offers an RSS feed, I use it as is; when I need to turn a webpage into a feed, I use FeedLantern. It can detect page content automatically, and I can also adjust the feed rules visually.
The feeds are then sent to Telegram channels by RSS-to-Telegram-Bot. For English feeds that need translating, I run them through FeedLantern first to generate Chinese or bilingual versions, then pass them on to the bot.
The workflow is straightforward: get the feeds → translate when needed → send them via the bot → read them in Telegram.
Once everything was brought into one place, a new problem emerged: updates in each channel became a single message stream. With my setup, I can’t browse items by feed the way I could in Reeder. If I put everything in one channel, the most active sources quickly take over, and important updates that appear only occasionally can easily get buried.
Give different kinds of information their own reading space
My solution is to split things across channels. But sorting only by topics like “academia” and “life” isn’t enough. Even within academic content, new papers from general journals and updates from authors I follow closely arrive at different rates, and deserve different amounts of my attention.
So I consider two things at once: how often a source posts, and how important it is to me.
The Library and the Magazine
I put feeds from journals like Science, Nature, Cell, and PNAS in “The Library.” There are lots of updates here, so it’s a good place to browse and see what’s been published recently.
Feeds from authors I follow closely, along with those related to my own research, go in “The Magazine.” There may not be many updates, but each one is worth paying attention to. If they were mixed in with the flood of journal updates, I’d have to search through everything to find them. In a separate channel, I see the things I care about most as soon as I open it.
Both channels are about research literature, but they serve different reading habits: the Library is for broad browsing, while the Magazine is for keeping up with a few things closely.
Forum Roundup and My Corner
I use the same approach for my other subscriptions. There are lots of forum posts, and most don’t need to be read one by one, so I put them in “Forum Roundup” and check in when I have time to see what people are discussing.
The bloggers and other sources I follow deliberately don’t post as often, and their content matters more to me, so they go in “My Corner.” They don’t have to compete for space in the same stream as high-volume forum posts.
The image above shows the four channels I use: “My Corner” and “The Magazine” hold updates I follow closely, while “The Library” and “Forum Roundup” collect content that’s better suited to broad browsing. Keeping them separate lets me check the updates I care about first, then decide whether to catch up on the rest.
This hasn’t reduced the number of feeds I follow, but it has given different kinds of information their own places. I no longer have to give every new message the same level of attention.
Filter in Chinese, then return to the original for a closer read
Splitting feeds into channels keeps different sources from getting mixed together, but there’s still a lot in “The Library.” That’s why I recently added translation to FeedLantern.
Journals like Nature, Cell, and Science all offer RSS feeds. As a non-native English speaker, I still spend a fair amount of time going through large numbers of English headlines and summaries. That’s especially true during the initial screening stage, when I’m only trying to decide whether a paper is relevant to my research—not yet whether I want to read it closely.
Now I can give FeedLantern a feed URL and get a Chinese or bilingual version. I skim in Chinese first to pick out papers that might be useful, then return to the original for a closer read. This makes the initial screening much less demanding linguistically and leaves me more time for the material that really needs careful understanding.
Channel organization and translation each help with a different part of the reading process: the former makes important updates easier to spot, while the latter helps me decide more quickly whether a paper is worth pursuing.
The trade-offs behind the convenience
Compared with my previous setup, I still get the benefits of having information in one place and being able to control how often it’s fetched, and I still use self-hosted services to collect and process feeds. But now that Telegram is my reading hub, I’ve had to rethink what “fully self-hosted” really means.
Messages sent to channels are stored on Telegram’s servers, and reading them depends on Telegram too. It makes keeping up with information much more convenient, but it also means I’m entrusting an external platform with storing this content. That’s a real difference from my previous setup.
After more than six months, I’m comfortable with that trade-off for now. The channels separate out the updates I want to keep an eye on, and translation speeds up my initial screening, leaving me more time for articles worth reading closely. This workflow feels smooth enough for me.
If you use Telegram regularly, you could try bringing your RSS feeds into it. When deciding how to split things into channels, start with your own reading habits: what do you want to see right away, and what can wait until you have time to browse? Once you’ve figured that out, it’s much easier to make the tools work for you.
As an aside, I’ve given up on RSS feeds for WeChat Official Accounts because they’re just too unreliable. I’ll browse the articles WeChat recommends when I have some free time, but Telegram is still my main way of keeping up with information.