Handy Ways to Use Miniflux: Bookmarklet and Mobile App Integration

In a previous post I covered building “Miniflux”, an RSS reader you can run yourself.
Its appeal is that it is simple and fast, but there are ways to make the day-to-day work of “registering feeds” and “reading on mobile” even more convenient.

This time I explain the combination that is still the strongest as of 2026: registering feeds at blazing speed from a PC browser with the bookmarklet, and setting up synced reading in “NetNewsWire”, the popular iPhone app.

1. One click from the browser! How to set up the Miniflux “bookmarklet”

When you are browsing and think “I want to subscribe to this site!”, going to the trouble of copying the URL and opening Miniflux is tedious. Let’s make use of the official “bookmarklet”.

Setup steps

1. Log in to Miniflux and click Settings in the top menu.
2. Select Bookmarklet in the left menu.
3. Take the link labelled Subscribe shown on the screen and drag and drop it directly onto the browser’s bookmarks bar.
   • Tip: if the bookmarks bar is not visible, show it with Ctrl+Shift+B (Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac).

How to use it

With the website you want to subscribe to open, just click Subscribe on the bookmarks bar. The Miniflux registration screen opens automatically with the feed URL already filled in. All that is left is to press “Save” and you are done.

2. For reading on iPhone, “NetNewsWire” is the best! Setting up sync with Miniflux

If you want to check Miniflux on an iPhone, I recommend NetNewsWire , which is open source and extremely quick to work with.

Preparation: create an API key in Miniflux

For security, use an “API key” rather than your password.

1. Go to Settings ＞ API Keys in Miniflux.
2. Click Create a new API key, give it a name (for example: iPhone) and save it.
3. Be sure to copy the string that is displayed (note that it is only shown once!).

Settings on the iPhone app (NetNewsWire) side

1. Install NetNewsWire from the App Store and open it.
2. Tap settings (the gear icon) ＞ Add Account.
3. From the account list, select FreshRSS. (Since this is self-hosted, select FreshRSS)
4. Enter the following information:
   • API URL: the URL of your Miniflux (for example: https://reader.miniflux.app)
   • Email or Username: your login user name
   • API Token: paste the API key you created a moment ago.
5. Tap Add Account and you are done!

Summary: an efficient RSS subscription setup, complete

With this configuration, the following smooth flow for gathering information comes together.

• Find it on the PC: when you come across a site in the browser, register it instantly with the “bookmarklet”.
• Read it on the PC: check in between tasks with the Chrome extension “Tinyflux”.
• Read it on the iPhone: work through it briskly with “NetNewsWire” in spare moments.

By using Miniflux not merely as a web tool but in combination with apps and extensions, the efficiency of gathering information improves dramatically. Do give it a try! Please use the code with care.

See also