Stories are individual pieces of content that HeyNews pulls from your sources. When you generate a newsletter, you pick which stories to include.
A story is a piece of content HeyNews found from one of your sources. Each story includes:
Go to Content Desk and open Stories. You'll see individual stories newest first, with the source name shown on each story when HeyNews knows it. Use All for everything available, New for stories found since you last checked New, and Saved for stories you marked for later.
One-off stories you add yourself stay in Stories. They do not appear as recurring source rows in Sources, so the Sources view stays focused on feeds, saved pages, and profiles that HeyNews can keep checking.
Some stories are marked Summary only. That means the site would not let HeyNews read the full article, so the story holds what the publisher put in its feed: the headline, the short description, and the link. If HeyNews manages to read the full article later, the marker goes away on its own.
Select Best leaves those stories out, and so do scheduled drafts. There is not much there for an AI Writer to work from, and using one anyway is a call worth making yourself. You can still add any of them by hand while you build an issue, and Compose marks them Summary only as well so you can tell them apart. When you add one, your AI Writer mentions the story and links it without writing more than the short description says.
Search checks story titles, summaries, source names, and URLs. Results still show the real title from the original content, so a YouTube video or article stays recognizable even when HeyNews has also summarized it.
Stories come from several paths:
RSS and followed sources: HeyNews checks your RSS feeds, followed sites, Reddit, and profiles. Articles become stories automatically.
Newsletter history imports: if you've connected beehiiv, Kit, or a newsletter archive, HeyNews pulls URLs from your past issues and turns those links into stories. It also checks links inside those issues for more articles (up to 10 per issue), and can use those links to find recurring sources.
Add a story: in Content Desk, click Add, choose Add a story, and save one link, note, or idea. This is useful for one-off items that do not come from a recurring source. When the site blocks automated readers, HeyNews says so and points you to the Chrome extension instead of leaving you with a link that will not save.
Chrome extension: visit any article, click the HeyNews extension, and choose Save as story (add this one article) or Follow this site (add the homepage as an ongoing source).
Paste links in Compose: choose Add stories from links and paste up to 50 links from a spreadsheet, CSV, document, message, or plain text list. HeyNews finds links anywhere in the pasted content, removes duplicates, and lets you review them before it opens any page. These are one-off Stories, not recurring Sources.
HeyNews keeps a full year of stories on every plan. Anything newer than that stays in Content Desk, Compose, Smart Select, and automations exactly as you left it.
Stories older than a year are removed automatically and cannot be brought back.
Issues you already wrote are not affected. Every Draft keeps its own copy of the stories it used, so past issues open and read the same way even after the original stories are gone.
When you're on the Compose page, you'll see your story library in the left panel. Select the stories you want to include in your newsletter by clicking on them. You need at least one story selected to write a draft.
If you already collected links elsewhere, use Add stories from links. You can paste copied spreadsheet cells, CSV or TSV rows, bullets, Markdown links, or a mixed block of notes and links. Existing Stories are reused. New links are added as one-off Stories and selected in the order you pasted them.
If HeyNews cannot review the links right now, it keeps the pasted list in place. Wait a moment, then choose Review links again.
The import keeps working if you close the window or leave Compose. Write Draft stays unavailable until every link is ready or you decide to continue without the links that failed. Successful Stories stay in Content Desk for later use.
If a site does not allow automated readers, open the article in Chrome and use the HeyNews extension's Save as story action. The extension saves the page from your browser session, where you can already read it. Press releases and wire services block readers most often, so this is the fastest route for those.
Now and then a real article about bot checks reads like a block page to HeyNews and gets the same message. Save it with the extension and it goes through.
If a link opens a newsroom, blog archive, or another page that lists several articles, HeyNews will not save the whole page as one Story. Add that page as a Source so HeyNews can check it for new articles, or paste the individual article links you want to use. A Source behind the same site protection may still be unreadable to HeyNews.
Compose starts with Stories published since the selected AI Writer's last Draft. If that Writer has not created a Draft yet, Compose starts with the last 7 days. When fewer than three Stories are available, Compose widens that first search. Use the date button to choose the last 24 hours, 7, 14, or 30 days, all available Stories, a custom rolling window, or calendar dates. Rolling choices stay with that AI Writer and are shared with your collaborators. Calendar dates apply only to your current visit.
Stories are grouped by source name when HeyNews knows it. If you follow several feeds from the same publisher, Compose may show those Stories together. Compose shows up to 10 Stories from each source by default so one busy source does not crowd out the rest. Open Filters if you want to include previously used Stories or show fewer or more Stories from each source.
If an AI Writer is selected, HeyNews moves better-matching stories higher in the list. New stories can still appear before they have a relevance score, so you can use fresh source material right away.
You can also use Smart Select by clicking Select Best. HeyNews sorts available Stories by section, then picks up to the Story count you set for each one. If no Story fits a section, Smart Select leaves it under its limit instead of adding an unrelated Story. It's useful when you have a large Story library and do not want to pick everything by hand.
You can also select stories directly from Content Desk > Stories. Pick the stories you want, then click Use these in the sticky selection summary. Compose opens with those stories prefilled, even if they sit outside your current Compose date or source filters. Your selection is remembered if you refresh or come back before sending the stories to Compose.
Content Desk > Stories shows an overview of your stories:
Check these to see if your sources are giving you enough material to work with.