A Trick For Opening Magic Links in Your RSS Reader

Mar 28, 2025
3 minute read

This blog post is documentation for a very specific problem I run into about once a year. That’s rare enough to forget how I solved it, but frequent enough to waste 15 minutes rediscovering the answer. And let’s be honest: it’s not the big problems that drive you mad — it’s the little ones that feel like their own Sisyphean hell.

The Problem

Some websites 1 require you to log in using a magic link — a one-time link emailed to you that signs you in when clicked. It’s usually seamless. But on iOS, it can quietly become a headache. 2

If you open the link in your default browser, everything’s fine — no issue at all. But I do most of my reading in my RSS app, Reeder. When I run into a short-form RSS feed 3, I’ll tap to open the article in SafariViewController — the in-app browser you see in apps like Reeder, or my own app, Plinky. It’s an easy way to read the full article in a browser without leaving the app you’re already in.

The Problem (Simplified)

  • I open a link to paywalled content, like the excellent tech newsletter I subscribe to: platformer.news.
  • Platformer’s hosting provider, Ghost, emails me a magic link to log in and access the content I pay for.
  • But there’s no way to open that sign-in link inside Reeder’s SafariViewController.
  • If I click the link, it opens in the iOS default browser — and there’s no way to force it to open in Reeder’s SafariViewController instead. 4
  • I can’t even copy and paste the link, since SafariViewController has no address bar.

The Solution

Every time I run into this issue, I end up coming back to the only solution that actually works.

My favorite RSS provider, Feedbin, has a clever feature: it lets you generate a unique email address (like [email protected]) that turns incoming emails into an RSS feed. 5 It’s meant for forwarding email newsletters into your RSS reader — a nice way to keep all your reading in one place. But in a pinch, it’s also a great trick for accessing any email inside your feed.

  • I can’t tell Platformer to send the magic link directly to that Feedbin address, because my login is tied to my personal email — but I can forward the email there myself.
  • Since I’m already subscribed to that email-based RSS feed, the message shows up in Reeder.
  • Now I can tap the login link in Reeder, which opens SafariViewController — and just like that, I’m signed in.
  • 🌟 Finally, I can read the paywalled content I actually paid for! 🌟

Conclusion

While I hope this post helps someone else out there, let’s be honest — it’s really written for me, 12 months from now, when I’ve forgotten all of this again. 😒

  1. Such as all paid Ghost newsletters↩
  2. . You can’t even long-press and copy the link, because that will load the authentication page, invalidating the link’s effectiveness.↩
  3. Some websites don’t offer the full content of an article in the RSS feed. This can happen for a few reasons, but the most prominent is because the content lives behind a paywall, and this prevents free access to paid content.↩
  4. I did actually add a URL scheme for this in Plinky, because I know firsthand how this can be an issue!↩
  5. In case you don’t use Feedbin there are many services which are just as good and handle this specific problem.↩
# productivity

Joe Fabisevich is an indie developer creating software at Red Panda Club Inc. while writing about design, development, and building a company. Formerly an iOS developer working on societal issues @Twitter. These days I don't tweet, but I do post on Threads.

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