Feedburner doesn’t have a clear way to delete items from your feed – here’s a short guide that will walk you through it.
The Story
I was working on a post a few days back when I accidentally hit the ‘Publish’ button. The post (which was only a small way towards being finished) was automatically added to my blog index and my blog’s feed. Feedburner, being the antsy antelope that it is, added it to my Feedburner feed only minutes after. I quickly removed the new post, but it still appeared in my Feedburner feed.
Feedburner caches feeds so that it doesn’t have to download them every time someone accesses them. Once the cache was updated to include my fraction of a post that I had published, it stayed there even after I removed the post from my blog’s feed by making it a draft again.
I figured out a way to delete items from a Feedburner feed. It’s actually pretty simple. Here goes nothing.
Deleting an Item From Your Feed
Follow these steps to delete an item from your feed:
- Remove the item from your blog’s feed. When dealing with WordPress, there’s two ways of doing this. You can either set the item to be a draft again, or delete it. If you aren’t dealing with WordPress, this is a fairly simple task so you can probably figure it out for yourself. ;) In general, if the post does not appear on your blog’s index, it probably isn’t in your feed.
- “Nuke” your feed in Feedburner. You can do this by heading over to Feedburner and then clicking on the ‘Troubleshootize’ tab. Scroll down until you see the header ‘The Nuclear Option: “Resyncing” your feed’ and click the button to ‘Resync Now’. It’s kind of odd to find this option here, so that’s why I’m making a blog post about it. It was the last place that I decided to look. The option is also hidden under the page fold so it’s harder to find.
It’s as simple as that. The resync option is played up to be a catastrophic event (“nuking” your feed), but it’s painless. Your feed will be rebuilt from your updated blog feed that does not include the extra post instantly.
Questions? Having trouble? Leave a comment!
Thanks a million for this, something that I have always been looking for! That publish button is just so easy to hit! I am not a big fan of the “are you sure” buttons but I think they should have them on blogs for publishing because I have done it at least 10 times over the years!
@Niall
No problem! :)
I just tried it but it’s still showing up in my feed. Please help!
@Gina
Is it still showing up? Check your blog’s feed to see if the item is still there.
Thanks for this Austin, worked like a charm! I tried installing Windows Live Writer and it created a temporary post during setup. Although it deleted the temp post immediately, it was not deleted in feedburner until I followed your guide. Thanks again!
Thanks !!!
Just what I was looking for, perfect and simple solution :)
this did the trick, and saved me embarrassment. thanks!
@Jay Castillo, Daddo, and dadshouse
Glad to hear that this helped you! Thanks for commenting!
That nuke tip was perfect. Thank you!
Very strange, the nuke didn’t work for me. The (temporary $&#^ Livewriter) post is definitely gone from my WP site and feed (I checked the original feed), but it’s still there on the Feedburner feed after repeated nuking!
Any ideas?
Thanks, I was searching like crazy how to erase a post in feedburner. :)
Just lining up in the queue – thank you! :-)
thanks so much! This saved my weekend! LOL
Hey guys i deleted my Feed from feedburner and now my wordpress feed has gone can anyone help this is driving me crazy!
1000000000000000000000000000000000000 thanks!
Thankyou, that was just what I needed. It’s too easy to press the wrong button working on a Sunday…
I’m glad that I could help all of you!
@Dave
Hm, I’m not sure. You’ve probably found a solution by now though, sorry that I couldn’t get back to you earlier. Is everything all set?
thanks! this helped a lot!
THANK YOU! This was a life-saver!! I saw that option but never would have thought it was what would delete that accidental posting.
Thanks heaps for posting this. The resynch worked. Unfortunately some of the stuff I wanted deleted was from the link splicer which had been deactivated (rather than from a post) and it’s still there. Appreciate this tip though and will remember it for the future.
Thank you so much by publishing this. I’ve been trying to delete my Technorati confirmation code from feedburner and hadn’t been able to.
Good karma for you!
No problem, I’m glad that I could help! Thanks everyone.
Thanks a lot… This post was very Useful… Like you said, google does give the impression of “Do not use this” for the Resync Button. :D
Didn’t work for me, my mistakenly-published post still shows up in my google reader. Could it be that some rss clients archive or cache posts as well? I’ve returned the mistaken post to draft status and sync’d my feed several times. Still showing – and I’m embarrassed.
(Random note – I use feedburner to email my content out as well, and that did not happen. Thank goodness!)
@JP
It’s probably cached in your reader. Try viewing the feedburner feed directly and seeing if it is there.
I tried to add the Feedburner email component to my blog, but have no idea if I did it correctly. I was going to delete the feed and start over, but cannot seem to find a way to do this if you have made a mistake. When I go into Feed Burner, my blog’s name shows up three times. It also said I had two feeds – Atom and Rss. I have no idea what any of this means. I just want people to be able to get my blog posts as email, rather than having to read on a reader. Can you help? Thanks.
Thanks for the instructions on resyncing a Feedburner feed to remove extraneous posts.
Thank you so much. While configuring Windows Live Writer, it auto-published a very strange post to my blog, and they says it is for testing & importing my blog theme. :)
HELP i deleted the post in wordpress….I nuked Feedburner,,,but the title still sits on my and others Reader posted on Google homepage…Help I need to erase the headline title
Thank you very much! However remains of the delete feed still linger the internets. Damnit.
Thanks!
That works with Blogger/blogspot too!
Still working out! Thank you.
No problem!
Thank you, worked perfectly. Awesome!
Glad to hear that, no problem!
Thanks so much. Now it’s been renamed “ping”. Still under Troubleshootize.
Thanks, worked perfectly :)
thanks for the tip. Very helpful. Just the feedburner solution i was looking for.
Thanks! Just what I was looking for.