NetNewsWire 7.0.4
The big new changes are to iCloud syncing: there’s a new setting to not sync the content of unread articles, since that’s the biggest part of your iCloud database and what takes the longest to sync.
We’ve added a new weekly background iCloud storage cleanup.
This happens automatically, but there’s also a status window with a Clean Up button to initiate it manually.
Your next syncs after cleaning up may take an extra long time! This is because iCloud syncs deletions, and doing a cleanup means doing a lot of deletions.
[…]
From here on sync times should be faster and iCloud storage needs should be lower.
I’ve been syncing using Feedbin, and version 7.0.2 added an important fix for that, with more to come in 7.1.
To be clear: we didn’t do anything in NetNewsWire to support AI, LLMs, or MCP, but, since the app is scriptable, you can do all kinds of useful things with it.
Here’s the netnewswire-mcp repo on GitHub.
I’ve been feeling like MCP is a lot like x-callback-url. Kind of a janky, pragmatic solution to a problem that optimized for opportunities and constraints available at a particular moment.
Maybe not built to last, but super useful.
Previously:
- CKSyncEngine
- NetNewsWire 7
- NetNewsWire 6.2
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) Tools for Mac
- iCloud Syncing Limitations & Solutions
Update (2026-06-17): Brent Simmons:
My hope for retirement was to get a lot of work done on NetNewsWire.
A year ago it was in sore need of modernization, tech debt pay-off, and bug fixes. People were asking for features, but the foundation needed a ton of work before I could get on to adding new rooms.
Here are some highlights of what we’ve done with 2,188 commits in the past year[…]
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“Not built to last, but super useful” basically describes the internet and everything it’s made of.
Though I’m glad this whole thing came about ad hoc, because it seems the only plans anymore are evil ones.
