Getting Started with NewsNinja 3

NewsNinja brings your favorite websites, YouTube channels, subreddits, podcasts, and social feeds together with useful information about your day. You choose the sources you follow and decide how you want to see them.

This guide walks you through your first setup, explains the difference between Today and Feeds, and shows you how to find more content with Discover.

Start with the three main screens

NewsNinja has three main screens, each with a different purpose:

• Today is your customizable dashboard for recent stories and what’s happening in your day.
• Feeds is where you browse your followed sources, organize them, and manage your content and integrations.
• Discover helps you find new sources and explore popular and trending content.

A useful daily routine is to start with Today for a quick catch-up, open Feeds when you want to explore a particular source, and visit Discover whenever you want something new to follow.

Set up your first sources

The first time you open NewsNinja, onboarding introduces these three screens and helps you fill the app with content. You have three ways to get started.

Choose popular feeds

Select Select from Popular Feeds to browse starter sources, including websites, YouTube channels, subreddits, and podcasts. Choose the ones that interest you, then tap Next to add your selections and continue.

For websites, you can browse categories and change the country selection to find relevant publications. Start with a few sources you already enjoy and a few you would like to explore. You can add more whenever you want.

Import your existing subscriptions

If you already use an RSS reader, export your subscriptions from that app as an OPML file, then choose Import OPML during onboarding.

OPML is a standard format for moving RSS subscriptions between readers. It gives you a convenient starting point without having to enter each source individually.

Add sources manually

Choose Add Manually if you already know what you want to follow. The Add Source screen lets you paste a website, feed, channel, or profile URL, or select a source type for a more specific setup.

You don’t have to complete your whole collection during onboarding. You can continue and return to adding sources later.

Add information about your day

Onboarding also offers Weather, Calendar, and Reminders integrations. Configure the ones you want and grant access when requested for calendar events or reminders.

These integrations give Today useful context alongside your news: the weather, your remaining events, and the tasks that need your attention. You can manage them later through Feeds and add crypto tickers through Add Source.

The remaining onboarding steps introduce NewsNinja+ and let you configure notifications before finishing setup.

Make Today your own

Today brings recent content and your daily information into one dashboard. You can open a story, post, video, or podcast episode directly from its section, or use View more to browse beyond the dashboard’s initial selection.

Open Customize Today to choose what appears and how it looks. You can:

• Add sections for available feeds, categories, and source collections.
• Remove sections you don’t need and change their order.
• Choose between Detailed and Prominent styles.
• Show feed content from the last 8, 12, or 24 hours.
• Configure which feeds and integrations contribute to the Overview.

The time setting is a rolling window. For example, the last 24 hours includes recent content from yesterday as well as today, rather than resetting at midnight.

Integrations follow their own rules: weather and tickers show the latest available information, Calendar shows today’s remaining events, and Reminders shows today’s due reminders plus overdue tasks.

The Overview at the top gives you a quick snapshot. Its Briefing button lets you request an AI briefing based on the content and information available to Today. Pull down to refresh when you want to catch up again.

Start with a simple dashboard and adjust it as you use the app. You might keep a mixed Today Home section, a favorite news category, your podcasts, and your calendar near the top.

Understand Today and Feeds

Today and Feeds use the same sources, but offer different ways to spend time with them.

	Today	Feeds
Main purpose	Catch up on recent content and your day	Browse and manage your sources
Organization	A dashboard with sections you choose	Home, source collections, individual feeds, categories, and integrations
Content window	Recent feed items within your chosen 8-, 12-, or 24-hour window	Browse available items without Today’s dashboard window
Customization	Choose sections, order, style, and Overview content	Edit sources, organize categories, and manage integrations

Adding a source makes it available in your feed collection. Customizing Today decides which parts of that collection you want on your dashboard. Removing a section from Today changes the dashboard layout; it does not unsubscribe you from the source.

Home in Feeds and Today Home are related. Home brings together sources enabled for Home, while Today Home presents that collection within Today’s recent-content window. Use Show in Home when editing a source to decide whether it belongs in your mixed Home collection.

Browse and organize your feeds

Open Feeds to explore your collection in more depth. You can browse Home, a collection such as RSS or YouTube, an individual source, or a category you have created. Integrations are accessible here too.

For article lists, choose Compact, Card, or Magazine depending on how much detail you want to see. Use the available sorting and filtering controls to shape the list, and star items you want to return to later. When a list contains items, Overview lets you request an AI summary of the content currently displayed.

Open Manage Feeds to edit or remove sources, create and edit categories, configure integrations, and change the order of sidebar sections. Categories let you bring related sources together—for example, Technology, Local News, or Weekend Reading.

You can also use Import Feeds and Export Feeds from the management menu to import an OPML file or export your feed collection.

Add more content whenever you want

From Feeds, use the + control to add a feed. This opens Add Source, where you can paste an address or select a service.

NewsNinja supports RSS websites and blogs, Reddit, YouTube, podcasts, X, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Hacker News. Social sources are for reading and following content.

For example, you can add a website or RSS feed URL, a YouTube channel address, a subreddit, a podcast RSS or Apple Podcasts URL, or a supported social profile. Selecting a service shows the input expected for that source.

Review the source preview, adjust the available settings, choose a category if you want one, and save it. For RSS sources, you can also choose the reader setting. Use Show in Home to control whether the source joins your mixed Home collection.

Find your next favorite source with Discover

Discover is the place to explore beyond the sources you already follow. Browse curated websites and categories, popular YouTube channels, podcasts, and subreddits, or explore sections such as Top News, trending videos, Bluesky starter packs, and Mastodon tags.

You can open content to explore it before deciding what to add. When you find a source you like, open its feed preview and use the add control to follow it in NewsNinja.

Search by interest or address

The Search or enter address field supports two useful approaches:

• Search for an interest, such as astronomy, cooking, or technology, to look for sources. Results can appear in groups such as Feeds, Subreddits, Podcasts, and Substack.
• Enter an address when you already have a website, feed, channel, or supported profile in mind. NewsNinja uses its source resolver to identify what you can add.

Where a section offers category or country controls, use them to narrow your browsing. If a text search doesn’t find a source you know, try its website or feed address directly.

Discover is useful both when you’re building your initial collection and when your interests change. A source you add there becomes part of your Feeds collection, where you can organize it and make it available to your Today dashboard.

A simple way to begin

Choose a handful of favorite sources during onboarding, connect the daily integrations you find useful, and spend a few minutes arranging Today. Use Feeds to read more deeply and keep your collection organized. When you want a new perspective, open Discover and add something that catches your interest.

Your setup can grow with you. Start small, explore, and shape NewsNinja around the content you want to keep up with.