How to Get RSS Feeds of a Twitter User

Last May, Twitter unceremoniously killed off access to RSS feeds with the redesign of their website’s interface. Twitter has also been cracking down on application that duplicates functionality already offered by the site and its official apps to prevent third party apps from competing with Twitter. It’s evident that Twitter wants you to come to their site to use it. The killing off of the RSS feeds is to force users to visit Twitter or use one of their official desktop clients to read updates.

But Twitter has not completely disabled RSS feeds – they have just hidden it or made it difficult for users to access. Here are two tricks that will allow you to access any user’s RSS feed.

Method 1

To access the RSS feed of any user, use the following URL:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=USERNAME

So for example, if you want to access the RSS feed of Instant Fundas’ account, you would use the following link:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=instantkaushik

Method 2

The RSS feed of a Twitter user is also available via the following URL:

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/USERID.rss

The USERID is a unique string of numbers for a particular Twitter profile. This number represents the user’s actual position when he or she signed up for Twitter. The lower the number the older the account. To find this number go to this page and enter the Twitter username.

For example, the ID of ‘instantkaushik’ is 14100492. So the RSS feed of Instant Fundas becomes

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14100492.rss

Know any other ways to get the RSS feed of a Twitter user?