HowTo: Read your Google Reader feeds in Thunderbird April 18, 2009
Posted by CLibra in Email, Extensions, Google, HowTo, Mozilla, Websites.trackback
As an avid user of both Thunderbird and Google Reader on multiple computers, I’ve searched high and low, all over the internet for a solution to synchronise Thunderbird’s RSS feeds with Google Reader; adding my feeds into Thunderbird’s reader would be no good, as I’d have double updates on both of my machines.
Lifehacker had already posted a way to do this in Outlook, but Thunderbird doesn’t have the folder home page functionality that its Microsoft counterpart does, so that route was a dead end.
Fortunately, inspired by Lifehacker, I’ve discovered a way to embed a mobile version of Google Reader into my favourite email client, and it is simple and clean to use, and does not overtake the user interface. Here is how it can be achieved.
- Firstly, download and install the Thunderbrowse extension and CS Lite into Thunderbird; Thunderbrowse is a tool to embed a web browser into Thunderbird, and CS Lite is used to manipulate the cookies from Google Reader.
- Next, open your Thunderbird preferences on the ‘General’ tab. Make sure the box labelled “When Thunderbird launches, show the Start Page in the message area” is checked, and that the location field points to http://www.google.com/reader/i/. If you are unsure, check out this image on how it should look.
This tells Thunderbrowse that the page it should load on startup is the mobile interface for Google Reader, which a streamlined version of its full web counterpart. - After configuring Thunderbird’s start page, it’s time to set up Thunderbrowse to make Google Reader work. Navigate to the Add-ons menu, and open the preferences for Thunderbrowse. On the ‘Content’ tab, make sure that “Enable SmartJavascript?” is checked, and click Ok to save; this allows Thunderbrowse to run JavaScript which is used in Google Reader.
- Similarly, open the preferences for the CS Lite extension, and on the ‘Global’ tab, select “Allow cookies globally” from the drop-down box. If you don’t do this, Google Reader will complain that it can’t set cookies and it won’t work, so don’t skip this step!
- Restart Thunderbird. You may need to log in to Google Reader in the window that’s presented to you, but after doing so, you’ll have a section like this, displaying your new feeds in the message pane.
Hooray! Obviously, the mobile version lacks some of the functions as the full version, but it’s too cluttered to embed it into Thunderbird, and the menus overlay each other, making it almost impossible to use. Essentially, any webapp could be added to Thunderbird, so lovers of Google Calendar or Remember The Milk can take full advantage of their mobile versions in Thunderbird.
[http://lifehacker.com/5187172/use-google-reader-from-within-outlook]
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/5373]
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/5207]
How do i save the password so i don’t need to login everytime at gmail???
same problem here
I don’t think there’s a way – I didn’t manage to get it to work.
Excellent tip!
Only trouble is now to decide whether to put in Google Calender there or Google Reader!
(Calender recently seems to have stopped syncing with the Lighting add on for some reason, which is a shame as it makes Thunderbird an Outlook beater, rather than a Outlook alternative contender
)
Thanks for your comments! Are you using CalDAV or the provider extension to sync your calendar? I use CalDAV but you can try switching if one way isn’t working perhaps.
[...] This was the biggie as far as I was concerned. With over 2000 unread RSS messages, I wanted to be able to browse through the feeds and have it instantly updated online. I didn’t want to read them in Thunderbird but for them still to be sitting unread online. That would have led to chaos. Finally I discovered one possible solution. [...]
you are awesome! thank you!