Back to Support Grow Your Audience Blogging Subscribing to Blogs

Subscribing to Blogs

When you subscribe to a blog on WordPress.com, the new posts from that site will appear in your Reader, where you can view the latest posts published across the blogs you follow. You’ll also receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Blogs

If you have a WordPress.com account, when you are logged in, click the Follow button that appears in the bottom right-hand corner of all WordPress.com sites:

The follow button for a WordPress.com account

All new posts published on that blog will now show up in your Reader. You will also receive email notifications of new posts. You can change your settings to Immediate, Daily, or Weekly delivery or opt out of email notifications.

Note: The follow button only appears for sites with two or more published blog posts.

If you have not signed up for WordPress.com (or, you’re not logged in), a dialog box will pop up asking for the email address where new blog posts should be sent after clicking on the Follow button.

If you have an existing WordPress.com account you can use the “Log in now.” option to log into your account and follow the blog.

A Follow button expanded to display the name of the blog, how many people have subscribed and an email address field with a Sign me up button. Below the button is a link to log into an existing WordPress.com account.

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Be sure to click on the confirmation link in the email that we send you. You won’t receive email notifications for new posts and updates until you’ve confirmed your subscription request.

You can also follow a blog using a subscription form if the site owner has added one:

The Follow Blog widget has the same text field to enter your email address to follow posts by email.

From the Reader, you can click the Follow icon under a blog post to receive updates from that blog.

A blog card in the Reader with an arrow pointing to the follow icon below the blog excerpt.
Follow a Blog Not on WordPress.com

To add a blog from Tumblr, Blogger, or any other service to your Reader, click Manage next to the list of sites you’re following:

An arrow pointing to the linked "Manage" text.

In the text box at the top of the page, enter the URL of the site you’d like to follow:

A field with a blog address entered, and an arrow pointing to the option to follow that address below the field.

Click Enter on your keyboard or click the Follow button, and future posts published on that blog will appear in your Reader. The last site followed appears at the top of your list of followed sites:

The new site that you are following will show up at the top of your following list.

Change Email Notification Settings

Go to Profile → Notification Settings → Reader Subscriptions to change your default email delivery methods for all the blogs you follow:

The Subscriptions Delivery section has a series of options, including how often email notifications are received, the email format, and when the emails are sent. At the bottom is a checkbox to block all email updates from followed blogs, then a button to save the changes.

If you have set up a WordPress.com Jabber account, you can get new posts instantly pushed to you via instant messenger (IM) by checking the box next to “Default delivery via Jabber instant message”.

Email Settings for Specific Blogs

To change your email preferences on a per-blog basis, click Manage in your Reader and click the settings icon below the Following link next to the title of a specific blog you follow. Select the frequency of email notifications for each blog.

An arrow pointing to the linked "Manage" text.
On the Manage Followed Sites screen, an arrow pointing to a settings cog next to a followed site. A menu is expanded that displays notification options.

How to Unfollow a Blog

First, make sure you’re logged in. Then visit the site you want to Unfollow and click the button that says Following in the bottom right-hand corner.

The Following floating button that appears on WordPress sites you are following.

You can also click Edit List in your Reader to display the list of blogs you follow. Find the blog you no longer wish to follow, then click the green word Following next to the name of the site to stop receiving notifications of new posts from that blog.

The new site that you are following will show up at the top of your following list.

If you are not a WordPress.com user, visit the Subscription Management page and click the Unfollow link next to the blog title. Changes to these settings will be immediate.

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