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Changelog
What's new in Newsbin.
Newsbin is under active development, and updates land almost every week. Here's the running list. Subscribe to the feed to follow along.
2.4.1
Repair broken feeds
Repair a broken feed: the sidebar error alert and the Connections row menu now offer a Repair action that searches the site for working feeds, and the feed editor has a “Find feeds for this site” option.
Connections now has a search field and a problems-only toggle, so you can narrow a long list to the feeds that need attention.
Discovered feeds are now named from the feed itself, and correcting a feed or Smart Group re-enables Save right away.
Fixed the reader closing on its own on macOS, a macOS onboarding crash during first iCloud sync, and crashes on large libraries.
2.4.0
Summary presets and source briefs
Summary presets: choose a length (Brief, Medium, or Detailed) and a style (Summary or Key Points) in Settings → Intelligence, synced across your devices.
Per-source briefs: when the list is grouped by source, each section header has a summary button that briefs just that source.
Smart Tags are more precise, with 4 to 8 real subject tags per article, and tag filters and blocked tags now take them into account.
Richer summaries: cloud and custom AI providers now read much more of each article, and Key Points renders as a proper bulleted list.
Restoring a backup now shows what’s inside first, and Newsbin no longer writes an empty backup over a good one.
Much faster on large libraries, especially with tag filters active, plus fixes for a Mark All Read crash, same-day backups overwriting each other, YouTube counts, and JSON feed items without dates.
2.3.3
Faster with large libraries
Much faster and lighter with large libraries: the article list now loads in pages and grows as you scroll, and header counts plus Mark Above and Mark Below now cover the whole tab.
Detailed refresh progress is back, with per-feed validation, a live count of new articles, and a real progress bar. On macOS, click the sidebar activity area for a timestamped refresh log.
New Update All Favicons button in Sidebar settings, background upgrades of generic icons, and a new portrait extra-large widget with a refreshed header.
Apple Intelligence now works on Vision Pro, and summaries fall back to the on-device model when Private Cloud Compute has trouble.
Fixed Google Alerts feeds showing only one article, feed entries going missing (including YouTube Shorts, timed-out full-text feeds, and Atom feeds with older dates), and garbled article text from compressed data.
Fixed articles older than your expiration setting being re-imported as unread, “Clear all” and scroll-to-top failing on long unread lists, and assorted feed icon, Settings, and reader paging bugs.
2.3.1
Smarter summaries, steadier app
Improved Apple Intelligence: where available, summaries and briefs now run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute — a more capable model with the same privacy, free and with no setup.
Show Full Article: on a summary-only feed, load the complete story for just the article you’re reading; the toolbar icon fills in while the full article is shown, and tapping it again goes back to the feed’s version.
Custom feed icons: the Add and Edit Feed sheets now have a Favicon URL field with a live preview, and Newsbin finds better icons automatically by preferring the feed’s own icon or the site’s high-resolution icon before falling back.
Setup now lets you choose how Newsbin looks — reader font size and article list style (list, small thumbnails, or large thumbnails) — plus more haptic feedback throughout, and What’s New can be reopened from the Window menu on macOS.
Smoother scrolling and much lower memory use on large libraries: sync work and AI preview updates wait until you stop scrolling, preview text updates in place, and Newsbin clears caches and pauses background work when memory runs low.
Feed warnings no longer cry wolf — a feed is flagged only after three failed refreshes in a row, rate limits and temporary server errors don’t count, being offline never flags anything, and feeds that truly fail to parse show their error in the sidebar.
With the unread filter on, articles you’ve opened stay in the list until you change lists; letter-only keyboard shortcuts on macOS (like the Feedbin template’s) now work; and deleting and editing feeds is faster.
Fixed feeds moving out of their folders and back to the top level across devices, and a new or untouched device resetting settings chosen elsewhere.
Fixes: newsletter relay feeds (such as Kill the Newsletter) showing no articles, synced articles opening blank during preloading, a stray refresh at launch with “Refresh on startup” off, multiple out-of-memory crashes on large libraries, a crash from malformed images, the Edit Feed sheet closing itself, the clear-reads confirmation not appearing from a menu, unreliable tag management sheets, and corrupted compressed responses showing as unreadable text.
2.3.0
Organize your sidebar
Rearrange the sidebar with drag and drop: drag folders to re-parent them or drop them back to the root, and file feeds into folders from any menu with nested destinations shown as full “Parent > Child” paths.
Folders can now carry their own SF Symbol or emoji and a color, synced across all your devices and included in backups; re-importing an OPML adopts your existing folders and keeps their icons, colors, and order.
Select multiple feeds and folders at once, then move, refresh, mark as read, or delete them in one go — with a continuous highlight across selected rows, a stacked drag preview, an “N Selected” title with combined unread count, and a batch delete that confirms first.
New Shortcuts panel on Mac and iPad rebinds every command (press to record, Esc to cancel, Backspace to unassign), with templates for Feedbin, Feedly, Inoreader, NetNewsWire, and Reeder — and your setup syncs across devices.
Custom AI providers now fetch their own model list so you can pick a model instead of typing its name, and self-hosted endpoints reached over a VPN now work, including Tailscale (ts.net), home.arpa, and .internal hostnames.
More reader font sizes, and the setting now scales every part of the article; font size is per-device, like the system text size.
Cleaner articles: author-bio cards, duplicate bylines, “Follow us on Google News” promos, and oversized YouTube embed placeholders are stripped, lead images and full reader view render properly on more sites, and dismissing the in-app browser returns you to the article rather than the list.
Fixed a long-standing cause of feeds gradually disappearing — a dormant device waking up and broadcasting stale state — plus memory crashes on very large libraries when saving sync state.
Fixes: articles reverting to unread when switching tabs, reader font size having no effect on macOS, broken YouTube videos in the reader, Breaking News cards reshuffling, cropped non-square feed icons, and Newsbin failing to quit its previous copy on macOS when relaunched. The reader is also hardened against malicious feed content, and feed connections now prefer HTTPS.
2.2.0
Sync, rebuilt
An all-new sync engine replaces the previous iCloud pipeline: feeds, folders, tags, and smart groups now converge reliably instead of drifting apart.
Articles and article text sync too, so every device shows the same list and unread count, and a story opened on one device stays readable — and summarizable — on the others, even offline.
Read state propagates in seconds instead of minutes, “Mark all read” lands everywhere including devices that never had those articles, and a “Synced” indicator in the status bar shows when changes arrive.
Setting up a new device now reliably restores your entire library with visible progress; automatic iCloud backups are on by default, and retention keeps the newest snapshot from each age band per device so history spans a month.
Duplicate feeds, stray folders, empty “No Title” smart groups, and blank tags are cleaned up automatically on every device; folders now derive identity from name and parent, so OPML imports adopt existing folders instead of creating rivals.
Reading improvements: the list stays put when new articles arrive with a button to load new unread items, plus swipe-to-delete, background link opening, real YouTube channel avatars, and fixed media badges for Dailymotion, Twitch, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
All 24 languages are properly registered with Slovak newly added, and counts now use correct plural forms in every language.
Device-to-device Nearby sync has been retired — iCloud handles it more reliably, and Newsbin no longer requests local network or Bluetooth permission. Apple Watch sync is unaffected.
Fixes: drifting unread badges, a sparse Breaking News rail after sync import, an infinite loop in the media scanner, OPML unescaped ampersands, future-dated feed articles pinning to the top, and a long-running issue where feeds gradually disappeared from large libraries.
2.1.2
Smart Group crash fix
Fixed a crash loop caused by force-unwrapping optional fields in Smart Group views; duplicate Smart Groups created by CloudKit are now safely deduplicated on render.
2.1.1
YouTube live and Shorts
YouTube live streams and Shorts are now supported, with video embedded inline for video-only items.
Sharper Breaking News clustering, with entity-aware title tokenization and better guards against false groupings; Breaking News now behaves as a proper story with unread-first display and story-scoped read and delete.
More reliable end-of-list auto-read that survives in-place relists and long refreshes, plus new-install defaults for a 5-day expiry and auto-read on scroll.
Redeem offer codes from the Paywall or Settings, with entitlements refreshing immediately after redemption.
Proper flat platform app icon on Vision Pro.
Hardened cleanup of AI-generated summaries and excerpts, rejecting hallucinated output and repairing existing summaries in a one-time pass.
Reader and scrape pipeline improvements, including image caption injection for image-only articles and a Gizmodo-specific fix.
Fixed archived articles reappearing as unread after iCloud or Nearby sync, a NearbyHistory crash, network decompression memory crashes, and numerous small stability and localization issues.
2.1.0
New reading modes
New reading modes in Reading settings: Bionic Reading, Dyslexic Mode, and Invert Article Colors.
Settings redesign: reorganized into 12 focused panels, with a new Appearance panel for accent color and app icon, plus new Articles, Notifications, and Data panels.
Dramatically smoother scrolling in large libraries thanks to lazy read/unread computation, an in-place unread-filter fast path, and off-main-thread thumbnail and favicon decoding.
End-of-list auto-read queues remaining unread items when you reach the bottom of a list, and you can now redeem offer codes from the Paywall, Settings, or debug tools.
macOS remembers sidebar and content column widths across launches.
Restored background feed refresh on iOS so Top Story and other notifications fire reliably again.
Fixed launch crashes on prewarmed iOS launches, undeletable duplicate “zombie” tags, a NearbyHistory crash, and 0xdead10cc WAL-lock crashes in List Overview reads.
2.0.1
Smoother scrolling, smarter auto-read
Per-article auto-read on scroll: articles are marked read as they leave the top of your list, with new “Read Above” and “Read Below” swipe actions.
Much smoother scrolling in large article lists thanks to lazy read/unread computation and a phase-only remap fast path.
Preview the Top Story notification from Intelligence settings to see exactly how alerts will appear.
Edit Smart Groups on the Watch and have them sync back to your library; Breaking News now always shows content by falling back to a Top Stories rail.
More reliable widget deep-linking, Smart Group badges that respect tag filters, and refreshes that no longer overwrite AI summaries.
AI summaries are cleaned of hallucinated “Tool Results” transcripts and stray “Summary:” prefixes, with existing summaries migrated automatically.
Fixed background terminations (0xdead10cc), an out-of-memory crash in the media scanner, and iOS launch wiring for notifications and the CloudKit guard.
Fixed tag edits from the article view not persisting, watchOS iCloud key-value sync, and several small crashes reported from TestFlight.
2.0.0
AI, on your terms
A major update that adds AI to Newsbin without changing what you love. Every feature is opt-in, runs on-device with Apple Intelligence (or your own API key), and never routes through our servers.
New Home tab with For You (a personalized feed learned on-device) plus Discover, “Who to Follow” recommendations, and suggested feed previews.
Breaking News clusters duplicate coverage of the same event into a single story, and Top Stories gives a daily digest with optional notifications.
AI reading tools: article summaries, Section Brief overviews clustered by topic, Smart Tags, and Topics extraction that plug into your existing workflows.
Choose Apple Intelligence or bring your own API key (Claude and other providers); Private Cloud Compute is guarded and controllable per feature.
Full watchOS support with a redesigned Watch app, Mail-style article windows on macOS, new Shortcuts actions, a browser chooser, and Manage Followed for diagnosing stale feeds.
Improvements: LZFSE-compressed iCloud backups, clearer “Sync paused” status on CloudKit mismatches, faster on-device generation, and refined screens across all platforms.
Fixes: resolved a background crash (0xdead10cc), stopped deleted follows reappearing after refresh, fixed SwiftUI navigation crashes and Watch snapshot sync, plus stability and localization cleanups.
1.18.9
YouTube feed fixes
YouTube feeds: restored proper channel discovery after YouTube’s mobile page changes, so feeds use the channel’s real display name and avatar instead of falling back to a generic “YouTube” title and icon.
YouTube: view and like stat icons are visible again in the article view.
Prevented feed-level metadata (channel homepage, feed publication dates) from leaking into individual articles, which had been creating bogus entries in YouTube and similar feeds.
Apple Watch: Watch-initiated refreshes now push results back to the Watch, so the list no longer stays empty after asking the Watch to refresh.
1.18.8
Stability release
Resolved an issue with a deprecated web view that could affect article rendering.
Minor localization and build target updates.
1.18.7
Grouped reading fixes
Grouped article lists no longer immediately re-mark items as read after “Clear all” or “Mark all read”; auto-read is briefly suppressed while the list settles.
macOS: added the missing entitlements needed for Nearby sync to work reliably.
Smart Groups: fixed an issue where all tags were incorrectly flagged when editing a group.
Added runtime detection and telemetry for suspended-with-locked-file terminations to help diagnose rare background crashes.
1.18.6
Smart Groups fixes
Smart Groups with their age filter set to “Off” now correctly show all articles instead of falling back to the global expiry window.
Smart Group unread badges only appear when iCloud unread tracking and badge preferences are enabled.
Folder and Smart Group changes now trigger a more reliable sidebar refresh.
1.18.5
More free reading
Free reading allowance increased from 5 to 10 articles per day, with refreshed paywall and welcome copy.
Thumbnail Discovery now picks up new articles mid-session, with fresh thumbnails appearing immediately and proper diffing of late-written thumbnails and media kinds.
More robust thumbnail extraction from real-world web pages, with stronger Open Graph, Twitter, and YouTube meta tag handling and a larger scan window for heavy pages.
Blocked tags are applied immediately after a refresh or iCloud sync, so filtered content never briefly appears, and Manual refresh mode now also skips peer- and nearby-triggered refreshes.
Nearby sync gained a reconcile acknowledgement step so history tokens only advance once the receiver confirms, improving cross-device consistency.
Sound playback runs on a dedicated background queue, and feed imports parse dates and regex faster thanks to cached compilation and shared lookup tables.
Resolved iOS background silent terminations caused by SQLite WAL locks during suspension by applying NSFileProtectionCompleteUntilFirstUserAuthentication to the database files.
Fixed thumbnail visibility races where background-scanned images could be overwritten by an in-flight refresh, plus small stability, logging, and localization fixes.
1.18.4
Thumbnail discovery
Thumbnail Discovery: an opt-in background scanner finds and attaches thumbnails for articles whose feeds don’t provide one, such as TechCrunch. Enable it in Reading settings.
Choose thumbnail position (leading, trailing, or off) and find article row size in the new Thumbnails section of Reading settings.
Refresh-on-open now reliably triggers each time Newsbin becomes active, with throttling so it won’t fire too often, and Manual refresh mode is fully honored.
Changing your refresh interval reschedules sync across devices through iCloud, and long refreshes show a “Checking for articles… / Still working…” status after 15 seconds.
More responsive sidebar and list updates with centralized blocked-tag handling, plus a native, version-proof selection highlight on macOS.
Resolved launch crashes (RunningBoard “0xdead10cc”) caused by database work and SQLite locking during init.
CloudKit imports are now debounced and skipped while backgrounded, and corrupt JSON in large backup exports is fixed by looping writes until the full buffer is committed.
Minor localization and layout cleanups across the article row and settings screens.
1.18.3
Sync overhaul
Sync overhaul: session reads and unreads write directly to the database as the single source of truth, removing parallel queues and duplicate broadcasts.
iCloud Reader and full articles are now enabled by default for new installs, with a “Refresh on startup” option to pull the latest articles every time Newsbin opens.
Session read overlay updates sidebar badges and the app icon count the moment you mark items read by scrolling.
Folder deletions are broadcast to nearby devices first, preventing deleted folders and feeds from being resurrected.
Hardened RSS parsing: feed HTML is sanitized against unsafe scripts and schemes, image URLs are restricted to http(s), and failed feeds are surfaced in the refresh status.
More reliable StoreKit restores: unfinished transactions are drained on launch and refreshes are coalesced, fixing repeated redelivery and auth prompts.
Faster Subscription screen and various localization and UI fixes.
1.18.2
YouTube and timestamp polish
YouTube feeds: alternate video links are detected and promoted to first-class video items.
“Time ago” labels use a rolling 24-hour and 7-day window for accuracy.
New item counts on refresh match what actually passes your filters.
Smoother sidebar rendering and faster badge updates.
Fixed an iPad duplicate subtitle and “Mark all read” restoring the focused article.
1.18.1
Stability release
Faster list refreshes and fewer duplicate items after large syncs.
Fixed background crashes by guarding database work while the app is suspended.
New per-folder and per-feed Archive action in the article toolbar.
Cleaned up orphaned feeds and duplicate folders left behind by deletions.
Large articles load via the JavaScript bridge after navigation, avoiding crashes.
1.18.0
Group by website
Group by Website: article list sections by source with favicon headers and one-tap mark-as-read.
Optional auto-read: website sections mark themselves read as you scroll past.
New Unreads settings panel and haptic feedback on common actions.
Nearby sync now uses history-based reconciliation: deletions stick, peers catch up after being offline.
More stable iCloud sync, faster startup, and broader localization.
Preserved read state on re-parse and fixed the “Icon Changed” alert on launch.
1.17.0
In-app browser
New in-app browser: open article links without leaving Newsbin (optional).
Snappier scrolling and faster, more accurate unread badges, including nested folders.
Article refreshes and database maintenance now run in the background.
Smoother sidebar and image loading with smarter favicon prefetching.
Fixed background-write crashes, a nearby-sync hang, and backup memory crashes.
1.16.4
Reinstall restore fix
Fixed grandfathered purchase restore after reinstalling Newsbin.
1.16.1
Restore fix
Fixed an issue where grandfathered users could not restore their purchase.
1.16.2
Restore fix, continued
Further fixes for grandfathered users restoring purchases.
1.16.0
Apple Watch companion
Apple Watch companion: browse feeds on your wrist with WatchConnectivity sync and background file transfer.
Nearby sync overhaul: resource-based transport, mutual invites, and phase sync.
Import deduplication via a new ID registry: no more duplicate articles.
More reliable CloudKit background sync with automatic change-token recovery.
Smarter RSS parsing, unified Blogger and Reddit parsers, faster launches.
Migrated app state to Swift’s Observation API for a snappier UI, plus visionOS tuning.
Fixed deletion propagation, sync timeouts, and thumbnail parsing issues.
1.15.1
Restore purchase fix
Fixed an issue where the “Restore Purchase” button was non-responsive.
1.14.0
Free to try
Newsbin is now free to try, with subscription and lifetime unlock options.
New Safari Extension for quickly adding feeds while browsing.
Zoom support for images and an updated app icon.
Resolved an async stutter, improved Blogger and Reddit parsing, and fixed RTL/LTR layout issues.
1.15.0
More reading options
More reading options and improved purchase messaging, plus bug fixes.
1.13.0
Deeper system integration
App Shortcuts, Dock quick actions, and Handoff support.
Improved video detection with fewer false positives.
Better reader-mode detection and batched media scanning.
Updated visionOS styles and expanded localizations with new notification options.
1.12.0
YouTube feeds
Full YouTube RSS support: follow channels like any other feed, with proper media detection.
Force refresh fully clears cached HTML for clean re-parsing.
More robust background syncing and iCloud message handling.
Reduced stale state, clearer error feedback, and updated localizations.
1.11.1
Discovery and polish
Faster, more reliable feed discovery, including redirected feed URLs.
More efficient, lifecycle-aware background media scanning.
Fixed an iPad double-title bug and iOS navigation glitches.
Parsers now skip non-article “demo” pages and fall back to RSS content.
Option to show or hide favicons, plus greatly improved French translations.
1.11.0
Widgets and Spotlight
Widgets on all supported platforms for quick access to your feeds.
System-wide Spotlight search to instantly find articles.
Vastly improved Apple Watch app with faster sync.
New folder support to group and organize feeds.
Major overhaul of article loading, caching, and display.
Better support for non-standard feeds and a large internal refactor.
1.10.4
Faster article loading
All-new HTML loading system with caching, deduplication, and prefetching.
Smarter feed parsing with fallbacks for unusual RSS and Atom formats.
Better video support with cleaner detection and improved thumbnails.
More robust Nearby syncing on a streamlined transport layer.
Cleaner titles and more accurate dates via improved normalization.
1.10.3
Clearer sync status
New sync status indicator with clearer iCloud and device sync feedback.
Refined onboarding with iCloud and nearby sync setup, plus restore-from-backup.
Smoother sidebar and toolbar animations, minor design tweaks, and fixes.
1.10.2
Speed for big libraries
Huge speed improvements for users with lots of feeds.
Edit tags directly with simple built-in tools.
Hide followed feeds that have no unread articles.
More accurate unread badges, improved notifications, and a refreshed article reader.
1.9.0
The big redesign
Complete redesign of Newsbin’s appearance, performance, and sync foundation.
Accent colors everywhere: customize tint, icons, and themes with iCloud sync.
New app icons in multiple color sets.
Redesigned two-column Settings and a dynamic sidebar for Mac, iPad, and Vision Pro.
Completely refactored iCloud and Nearby peer-to-peer sync, plus a new peer backup system.
Improved focus and keyboard navigation, refined toolbars, expanded localization.
Faster startup, smoother scrolling, and modern Swift 6 architecture under the hood.
1.8.4
Smart group fix
Fixed an issue that prevented smart groups from being deleted, plus minor improvements.
1.8.2
Performance patch
Addressed performance and stability issues.
1.8.0
Nearby device sync
Nearby Device Sync: sync articles, read states, and preferences directly between devices, even without iCloud.
Smarter, faster badges with atomic updates and local caching.
Manual sidebar sorting for followed feeds and smart groups.
Smoother animations and better media handling while reading.
Smarter date detection for more feed formats and a new modular logging system.
1.7.1
Badge and feed fixes
Fixed issues with badges, subtitles, and certain feeds.
1.6.2
Stability patch
Addressed stability and performance issues following the 1.6 release.
1.6.0
Ready for iOS 26
Fully updated for iOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26.
Major performance boost from a re-engineered core foundation.
Reader mode now preserves audio, video, and rich embeds.
Smarter iCloud sync for settings, unread counts, and badges.
More viewing options, text size, and row size controls.
1.5.0
Full articles arrive
Read complete articles right inside Newsbin with the new reader mode: no more snippets or click-throughs.
Cleaner, easier-to-read formatting.
Force refresh for instant feed updates.
Faster, leaner, and more reliable overall.
1.4.2
Cleaner imports
More accurate validation when adding new feeds.
Smarter detection powered by improved pattern matching.
Cleaner and more reliable OPML imports, plus general polish.