Outlook 2007: Remove or Disable RSS Feed Support

Contributor Icon Contributed by Hack_Vista  
Tag Icon Tagged: Microsoft Office  

The integration between Outlook 2007 and Internet Explorer’s RSS system will slow down Outlook 2007. If you do not want to use Outlook 2007 for your feed reader or aggregator, here is how to remove this feature from Outlook.

Sadly, there is no command, option, or registry hack to hide the RSS icon or section in Outlook. We can, however, pretty much disable it.

If you do not want to use Outlook 2007’s RSS Feed Reader feature, you should remove it. It slows down Outlook. This also shows you how to remove the RSS feeds from the Outlook sidebar.

The main reason Outlook is made slower by RSS feeds is that Outlook will need time to sync with IE7’s feeds. By disabling this sync, you will improve Outlook’s performance.

Disable Outlook’s RSS Sync:

    1. Open Outlook 2007
    2. Click the Tools menu
    3. Click Options
    4. Select the Other tab
    5. Click the Advanced Options button
    6. Uncheck Sync RSS feeds to the Common Feed List
    7. Click OK X 2

    outlook_remove_rss_feeds

Woo-hoo. That will speed up Outlook. If you want to remove the RSS subscriptions from Outlook, you may wish to do this following.

Mass Remove Feed Subscriptions from Outlook:

    1. Click Tools menu and then Options again.
    2. Select the poorly named Mail Setup tab
    3. Click the Data Files button
    4. Click the RSS Feeds tab
    5. Click the first feed and scroll down to the bottom of the feed list
    6. Hold the SHIFT key and click the last feed. All feeds should now be selected.
    7. Click the Remove button
    8. Confirm you want them all deleted.

Now we’ll need to delete the old feed content as well…

    9. Expand the RSS Feed folder under Personal Folders
    10. Select each feed and press Delete. You’ll have to confirm the delete.
    11. Repeat ad nauseum until all are gone.
 

64 Comments -


  1. Sercan said on November 6, 2008

    How can we delete RSS Feeds and Sync Issues directories?

  2. Nilesh shukla said on January 5, 2009

    Thanks …
    after doing this process ,, now i have now not received any rss feed but error msg still coming…
    “Task ‘RSS Feeds’ reported error (0×8004010F) : ‘The operation failed. An object cannot be found.’”

    can you pls help me for ..the same..

    Nilesh shukla

  3. preston said on January 9, 2009

    excellent……………………

  4. Chris Johnson said on February 10, 2009

    Great tips, thank you.
    If like me you have hundreds of feeds to remove, the one-by-one deletion of feed folders is an ugly prospect.

    Good news is Outlook Web Access allows you to delete the entire RSS Feeds folder!

  5. JDog said on February 26, 2009

    To get rid of the send/receive error caused by RSS Feeds.

    1. Click on tools
    2. Click on options
    3. Select “Mail Setup” Tab
    4. Click the “Send/Receive” Button
    5. Make sure that “All Acounts” is high lighted and then click the “Edit” button
    6. Under Accounts in the left hand column select select “RSS Feeds”
    7. Uncheck all boxes on this page.
    8. Click the “OK” button then you can close out the rest.

    This should take care of your send/receive issue. It’s worked for me so far, :-)

  6. JDog said on February 26, 2009

    P.S. – Also make sure you do all of the above as well.

    Thanks

  7. Matt said on March 4, 2009

    thank you sir. outlook is so bloated it is difficult to do anything with it.

  8. Dee said on July 2, 2009

    Thank you thank you thank you! I couldn’t find that option for ages. Now all that cr*p has been removed

  9. Steveb said on July 9, 2009

    GLORIOUS!!!

  10. Anonymous said on August 24, 2009

    I did all of the above…but it won’t allow me to do #’s 9-11. It says that the folder is full. Is there something wrong with Outlook that I need to fix?

  11. Anonymous said on August 24, 2009

    What do you mean, “Outlook Web Access”? What is that? I want to delete the entire RSS Feeds Folder…

  12. Anonymous said on August 24, 2009

    Thanks! I was able to disable the rss feeds and get on with my work in no time.

    Instructions were precise and right to the point.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  13. Brett Widmann said on September 17, 2009

    Thanks for putting this together. Does this also resolve the program default for windows? Whenever I want to subscribe to a feed, Outlook always fires up. It’s a bit annoying. :P

  14. Anonymous said on October 2, 2009

    thanks for this tip. you guys are great

  15. Anonymous said on October 10, 2009

    Thanx.. This was very helpful… Now I can get feeds to work….

  16. jd said on October 14, 2009

    thanks,

  17. Groves said on October 15, 2009

    I have had Outlook for many years. All versions.
    I have not changed any of the account setting….I even removed RSS feeds..except for one.
    I sometimes have to open task manager…processes…and scroll down to
    outlook.exe*32,,,and click on end task.
    I can then restart Outlook and all of whaterver was freezing..after even 60 or more minutes….runs…as outlook ran years before. I may lose something…I do not think so. I can open Windows Mail….and it is very swift…and shows all the email that Outlook was not showing…
    I can open Windows Mail even when Outlook is running and W M is there in only seconds.
    I have outlook connector….I think that is a problem..
    My brain tells me….and of course I could be wrong. I think MS is ready to end Outlook…and cause users to either use Windows Mail…or Live Mail.

    I run diagnose…and there is no problem. No problem? Something is afoot.

  18. Anonymous said on October 19, 2009

    You do not need to delete each feed individually (point 10) – you can select all items in the folder (Ctrl+A) and delete. Don’t forget to remove them from deleted items as well (suggest sorting by type to select them all in one go if you don’t routinely clear your deleted items en masse) to acheive full email server un-clogging.

  19. Anonymous said on November 11, 2009

    Thanks a lot. Information is really helpful

  20. Anonymous said on November 30, 2009

    Very helpful, thank you..

    @anitarundell OWA (Outlook Web Access) is a web version of Outlook that is often use in a corporate environment.

    Hamilton

  21. Anonymous said on December 2, 2009

    Create a new Binary value and set it to 1 in the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0OutlookOptionsRSS

    This will disable RSS completely.

  22. John said on December 8, 2009

    Great! Thanks a lot…

  23. Adam said on December 14, 2009

    On behalf of my mailbox and I, thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou….

    holy crap those $^&*ing rss feeds were driving me insane. They just wouldn’t stay gone and I couldn’t remember where that common feed option was. lol.

  24. rahul said on December 21, 2009

    Thanks a lot

  25. Anonymous said on December 28, 2009

    Hi
    My problem is, that I cannot get rid of this RSS Feeds. I can delete the RSS Accpunts in >Tools > Accounts > tab RSS, but after a restart of Outlook (2007), they are there again.
    In the Tools menu
    > Options
    > Other tab
    > Advanced Options button
    the option “Sync RSS feeds to the Common Feed List” is greyed out ….

    how can I remove the RSS accounts permanently?

    I have this problem on my private PC since I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7

    Thanks for any hint!

    Chris

  26. Hassan Fathi said on December 28, 2009

    It was helpful. Thans a lot

  27. Carolina Liguori said on January 11, 2010

    Thank you!!! this was very helpfull.

  28. Name said on January 13, 2010

    I disabled it in my out look . thanks for the info

  29. Anonymous said on January 13, 2010

    Thank you.

    Been bugging me for 6 months and finally had to take action.

    Worked perfectly.
    jd

  30. Travis Lambert said on February 5, 2010

    I followed all these steps several times. But after fifteen minutes or so I get more RSS feed items in my inbox. I go back to “RSS Feeds” and find that the feeds have reappeared!

  31. Anonymous said on March 2, 2010

    What happens if the box was already unchecked? and the feeds keep coming

  32. Penny said on March 18, 2010

    This does not work for me. I’ve removed all RSS feed from Outlook probably 50 times now, hoping upon hope that by some miracle they will stop.
    In Internet Explorer I go to tools, internet options, content, feeds settings and it clearly states that “This setting is ignored for feeds that have a publisher’s recommendation greater than the specified value.” What the heck does that mean? In other words, MicroSoft is the Almighty and I cannot state was has value on my computer?
    Does anyone have a fix for this? I’m The IT support person for almost 400 people who would really like an answer. Help??

  33. Mom of 3 said on March 30, 2010

    What if “Sync RSS feeds to the Common Feed List” is greyed out? How do I change this?

  34. patil said on June 21, 2010

    Thanks

  35. Donmilmine said on June 25, 2010

    So far so good at removing unwanted RSS Feed emails. Thanks for your help.

  36. Steve said on July 8, 2010

    Great stuff guys, thanks

  37. DrStrangepork said on July 9, 2010

    This is the complete solution, thanks.

  38. Ganesh Subbaiyann said on July 22, 2010

    i have do the above steps, my issue was solved…

  39. Dineshrohilla10 said on August 5, 2010

    Above Mention gudance really works.

    Thanks.

  40. Ariel said on August 15, 2010

    Great it really helpped! Thanks alot!

  41. Info said on August 17, 2010

    thanks but when attempting to delete RSS feed folders in outlook, get error message that folder is full, effectively preventing me from deleting them. I double-clicked the folders but they do not open or show anything inside????

  42. Info said on August 17, 2010

    followed your instructions word for wrod on removing the RSS Feeds from Mail Setup….only to find them all right back in place when I restart Outlook again??? any ideas?

  43. Ashutosh said on September 9, 2010

    thank you man…!!!

  44. B1165165 said on September 9, 2010

    Thx that worked nicely

  45. Hanson said on September 29, 2010

    great! much quicker thanks very much!

  46. Jeeva Rathinam said on October 9, 2010

    thanks its is great

  47. durbslaw said on November 2, 2010

    Pretty useless information as the feed is not disabled just the outlook interface of the feed, use the group policy to disable RSS completely

  48. Mullapudionly said on November 30, 2010

    thanks..for the info

  49. Adak said on December 8, 2010

    so great, Thank you

  50. Atif ahmed said on December 21, 2010

    Thanx dear this solved my problem

  51. Vakneen said on January 13, 2011

    actually you can the RSS feed form outlook.I did the following
    1.dragged the Icon to my deleted items
    2.now you will see +RSS icon folder under deleted items.
    3.right click while standing on deleted folder and select empty “delted items”.

  52. Jamsswingin777 said on January 21, 2011

    vakneen- that doesn’t work and i think if it did, the whole program wouldn’t be removed from outlook

  53. Rahul said on February 15, 2011

    Excellent …

  54. Sarathi Reddy said on March 14, 2011

    I did wht u said but again mails are coming to my outlook

  55. Ravia said on March 28, 2011

    good.

    thankyou.
    R6

  56. Macleaysheetmetal said on March 30, 2011

    Thank You

  57. Anonymous said on May 31, 2011

    the screenshot is NOT representative of the info in the article. the screenshot shown is under Tools->”Account Settings…”

  58. shaun vt said on July 6, 2011

    J Dog…

    You SIr are a Legend

  59. shaun vt said on July 6, 2011

    J Dog…

    You SIr are a Legend

  60. Anonymous said on July 26, 2011

    Fantastic post! Thanks for this. 

  61. Vimal Parmar said on August 1, 2011

    thanks team its great… :-)

  62. Thor said on September 1, 2011

    Thank you. This saved me a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to disable the rss feed. +1 10/10

  63. Manoj said on October 7, 2011

    Excellet work, Thanks dude, its working and let me see for the repsonse in the future

  64. Jeff said on January 24, 2012

    Disable RSS via policy:

    HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0*\Outlook\Options\RSS

    Disable
    DWORD
    1 = Disabled

    Easy as 3.14159

 

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