Reddit Top RSS is a set of scripts for Reddit's API that generates RSS feeds for specified subreddits with score thresholds. To preview your outputted feed items there is a front end that utilizes the Bootstrap v4 framework.
I prefer to interact with Reddit in a low-volume way, so I let Reddit Top RSS surface the most popular posts per subreddit in my RSS reader of choice. I usually use the averagePostsPerDay filter so I can expect a certain amount of posts in my feeds per day.
Due to Reddit's 2023 updated API policies it is now required to first set up an app in your Reddit account that Reddit Top RSS will authenticate through.
- First, log into your Reddit account.
- Navigate to the Reddit app preferences page: https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps
- Click the
create apporcreate another appbutton, depending on whether you’ve already created an app before. - Choose any name for the app. I've chosen
Top RSS. Reddit will not allow you to useRedditin the name. - Set the type of app to
web app. - You can leave
descriptionandabout urlfields blank. - Enter in any valid URI in the
redirect urifield. I've usedhttp://reddit-top-rss.test. - Click the
create appbutton when you’re done. - Your app’s client ID and client secret will be displayed. You'll need to add these to either your
config.phpor Docker environment variables.
To install this repository manually:
- Clone this repository somewhere with PHP >= 5.6 installed.
- Copy
config-default.phptoconfig.php. - Enter your Reddit user, app ID, and secret into lines 49, 56, and 63, respectively.
- Open
index.phpin a browser to view the front end. - Enter your parameters into the fields to get a preview of the posts that the filters will output. Click the
RSSbutton at top to open a new tab with the rendered RSS XML output of the specified filters. This is the URL you subscribe to in your RSS aggregator.
A docker image is available at https://hub.docker.com/r/johnny5w/reddit-top-rss.
docker run -p 80:8080 -e REDDIT_USER=your_reddit_user -e REDDIT_CLIENT_ID=your_app_id -e REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_app_secret johnny5w/reddit-top-rss:latest
version: '3'
services:
reddit-top-rss:
image: johnny5w/reddit-top-rss
container_name: reddit-top-rss
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- 80:8080
environment:
- REDDIT_USER=your_reddit_user
- REDDIT_CLIENT_ID=your_app_id
- REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_app_secret
- DEFAULT_SUBREDDIT=newsThe following required environment variables must be set, or you will not be authorized with Reddit's API:
| Parameter | Function |
|---|---|
| REDDIT_USER | Your Reddit user account with which you've created an app |
| REDDIT_CLIENT_ID | The client ID of the app you've created |
| REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET | The secret for the app you've created |
The following optional environment variables can be used to override the application defaults:
| Parameter | Function |
|---|---|
| DEFAULT_SUBREDDIT | This sets the initial subreddit on the first page load. Default: pics |
| MERCURY_URL | URL of your Mercury parser instance. See below. |
| MERCURY_API_KEY | API key for your Mercury parser instance. |
| CACHE_REDDIT_JSON | Whether to cache the JSON responses from Reddit. Default: true |
| CACHE_MERCURY_CONTENT | Whether to cache the responses from your Mercury instance. Default: true |
| CACHE_RSS_FEEDS | Whether to cache the outputted XML from Reddit Top RSS. Default: true |
There are five URL paramenters supported:
The exact string of the subreddit as it appears in the Reddit URL. Only one subreddit may be chosen.
Items below the desired score will be filtered out.
This parameter will get the average score for the past month's hot posts and will filter out items that fall below this percentage. This is helpful for volatile subreddits — and subreddits in general — since more people are using the service and causing posts to be scored higher and higher. Since this is a percentage, the number of items in the outputted feed should be more consistent than when using the score parameter.
Reddit Top RSS will attempt to output an average number of posts per day by looking at a subreddit's recent history to determine the score below which posts will be filtered out. This is the filter I find most useful.
Accepted values are html and rss:
htmlshows the front end preview.rssshows the rendered RSS XML feed. Use this for the URL to subscribe to in your RSS aggregator.- If the
viewparameter is left blank or omitted, the front end is shown.
https://www.example.com?subreddit=funny&threshold=10000https://www.example.com?subreddit=worldnews&score=1000&view=rsshttps://www.example.com?subreddit=coolgithubprojects&averagePostsPerDay=3
Reddit Top RSS comes with a default configuration. If you'd like to turn caching off, set a different default subreddit, or use a self-hosted Mercury parser, just enter your desired values in config.php.
If you'd like to include parsed article content in your outputted feed items, set a self-hosted Mercury parser URL and optional API key in config.php. An easy to install, Dockerized version of the Mercury parser can be found here: https://www.github.com/HenryQW/mercury-parser-api.
By default Reddit Top RSS will cache Reddit JSON files, rendered RSS XML files, and Mercury parsed content to speed up the application. To clear the cache, click the Clear cached results link in the footer. To disable caching for any of the above items, set the appropriate values to false in config.php.
This project is released under the MIT License.
