Send RSS to OneNote for Research: Tips, Templates, and Automation

How to Forward RSS to OneNote with Power AutomateForwarding RSS feeds into OneNote using Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) is a powerful way to centralize articles, research, and updates in one searchable notebook. This guide walks through the entire process: planning your workflow, creating and customizing the Power Automate flow, handling content formatting and attachments, and maintaining the automation over time. Follow the steps below whether you’re saving news for research, archiving blog posts, or building a centralized knowledge hub.

Why forward RSS to OneNote?

• Centralized storage: Gather articles from multiple sources into a single OneNote notebook.
• Searchable archive: OneNote’s search makes it easy to find saved items later.
• Automation saves time: New items get saved automatically without manual copying.
• Customizable formatting: Use Power Automate to choose what to include (title, summary, link, date, etc.).

What you’ll need

• A Microsoft account with OneNote (OneNote for Windows 10, OneNote web, or OneNote through Microsoft 365).
• Access to Power Automate (free tier works for basic flows; Microsoft 365 subscriptions offer more connectors and higher limits).
• The RSS feed URL(s) you want to forward.
• Optional: a OneDrive or SharePoint account if you want to save attachments or advanced content.

Flow overview

The basic flow will:

1. Trigger when a new RSS feed item appears.
2. Create a new page in OneNote with the feed item’s content.
3. Optionally download and attach images or save the full article to OneDrive/SharePoint and link it from the OneNote page.
4. Optionally tag or categorize pages to organize content.

Step-by-step: Create the flow

1. Sign in to Power Automate

   • Go to flow.microsoft.com and sign in with your Microsoft account.

2. Create a new Automated cloud flow

   • Click “Create” → “Automated cloud flow”.
   • Name the flow (e.g., “RSS to OneNote”).
   • Select the trigger “When a feed item is published” (RSS).

3. Configure the RSS trigger

   • Paste the RSS feed URL into the “Feed URL” field.
   • If you have multiple feeds, you can add additional triggers or use an RSS aggregator feed.

4. Add a OneNote action: Create a page in a section

   • Click “New step”.
   • Search for “OneNote” and choose the action “Create a page in a section”.
   • Select the Notebook and Section where pages should be saved.

5. Compose the OneNote page content

   • OneNote page content must be in HTML. Use the dynamic content from the RSS trigger to build the HTML page body.
   • A simple template:

     
     <h1>@{triggerBody()?['title']}</h1> <p><em>Published: @{triggerBody()?['published']}</em></p> <p>@{triggerBody()?['summary']}</p> <p>Original: <a href="@{triggerBody()?['link']}">@{triggerBody()?['link']}</a></p> 

   • Use Power Automate’s dynamic content tokens for Title, Link, Summary, and Published date. Adjust formatting as needed.

6. (Optional) Save full article or attachments

   • If the feed item includes an image URL or attachment, add actions to:
     • HTTP (GET) the image URL, then OneDrive/SharePoint “Create file”, and embed the image URL or attach a link in the OneNote page.
     • Or use “Create page in OneNote” and include the image tag with the absolute image URL in the HTML body; OneNote will render the image if the URL is accessible.

7. (Optional) Add tags or metadata

   • You can prepend categories, feed source, or tags in the page content or use a dedicated OneNote section per feed.

8. Test the flow

   • Save the flow and run a test. Publish a new item in the RSS feed (or wait for an update) and confirm a page appears in the chosen OneNote section.
   • Check formatting and tweak the HTML template if needed.

9. Error handling and throttling

   • Add Configure run after on steps to handle failures (e.g., skip image save if download fails).
   • Be mindful of Power Automate limits (runs per month, API call limits). If you have many feeds or frequent updates, consider batching or filtering items.

Example HTML template (copy into the Create Page action)

<!DOCTYPE html> <html>   <head><meta charset="utf-8"/></head>   <body>     <h1>@{triggerBody()?['title']}</h1>     <p><em>Published: @{triggerBody()?['published']}</em></p>     <p>Source: @{triggerBody()?['feedTitle']}</p>     <hr/>     <div>@{triggerBody()?['summary']}</div>     <p><a href="@{triggerBody()?['link']}">Read original article</a></p>   </body> </html> 

Note: If your RSS trigger doesn’t provide feedTitle, include a static source name or parse it from feed metadata.

Tips and advanced options

• Filter by keyword: Add a Condition to only create OneNote pages when the item content contains certain keywords.
• Deduplicate: Store item IDs in a SharePoint list or OneDrive file to avoid duplicates if feeds republish items.
• Multi-feed setup: Use a single flow with a switch on the feed URL or create parallel flows for each feed.
• Full-article retrieval: Use an article-extraction API (e.g., Mercury Parser or similar) via HTTP action to pull the clean article body before saving.
• Rate limits: Use “Delay” or batching if you hit connector limits.

Troubleshooting checklist

• OneNote connector can require you to use your Microsoft 365 account; personal Microsoft accounts work but may have different permissions.
• Ensure the OneNote section exists; the action can’t create sections.
• If images don’t appear, confirm the image URLs are public and use HTTPS.
• If flow doesn’t trigger, verify the RSS URL returns valid XML and that the trigger is correctly configured.

Maintenance and organization

• Create a notebook structure: separate sections for different topics, sources, or priority levels.
• Periodically review the flow run history in Power Automate to spot errors or missed items.
• Archive older OneNote pages into a separate notebook/section to keep active sections fast and searchable.

Forwarding RSS to OneNote with Power Automate turns a stream of articles into an organized, searchable research repository. The core steps—RSS trigger, compose HTML, create OneNote page—are straightforward, and you can layer on filters, attachments, and extraction to match your workflow.