To follow new research papers automatically, start with the free alerts the databases offer: arXiv's daily email listings or RSS feeds for your categories, and a PubMed saved search with My NCBI email alerts. Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar alerts widen the net, an RSS reader puts feeds in one list, and Avos summarizes new papers next to the news.
This guide is for researchers, clinicians, engineers and analysts who need to know when new work appears in their field without checking five sites a week. Full disclosure: Avos is our product. Facts about the other tools come from their own pages, linked below, and the official alerts come first because they are the right start for most people.
What are the ways to get alerts for new papers?
arXiv email listings and RSS. arXiv's email subscriptions send a daily listing of new submissions, with their abstracts, for the archives or subject classes you choose; you subscribe by sending a plain-text email to the archive. The same categories come as RSS and Atom feeds: add the category to https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/, for example https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.LG, and join several with a plus sign. arXiv says "Feeds are updated daily at midnight Eastern Standard Time", and new submissions are typically announced Sunday through Thursday, with none on Friday or Saturday (availability). Both work by category, not keyword; for keyword searches, arXiv points you to its search API.
PubMed saved searches with My NCBI. PubMed "contains more than 40 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature" and is free. Run a search, click Create alert under the search box and sign in to My NCBI (registration is free). The My NCBI help says updates can be daily, weekly or monthly, with 1 to 200 items per email, and asks you to log in at least once a year to keep receiving them. Any search can also become an RSS feed with Create RSS.
The search can be precise. PubMed's User Guide says Boolean operators go in uppercase, field tags in square brackets, and parentheses group concepts. So (semaglutide[tiab] OR tirzepatide[tiab]) AND alcoholism[mh] finds papers that name either drug in the title or abstract ([tiab]) and are indexed under the MeSH term Alcoholism ([mh]).
Google Scholar alerts. Click the envelope icon next to a search, an author search or a paper's "Cited by" list, and Scholar emails you newly published papers that match. Its help page says alerts go out "right after we add new papers", usually several times a week, and you don't need a Google account.
Semantic Scholar alerts. Semantic Scholar calls itself a "free, AI-powered research tool" and indexes PubMed, arXiv and other publishers (FAQ). It has alerts for authors, papers and topics, and a Research Feed that recommends recent papers based on the ones you rate (manage alerts). Alerts come once a day or once a week.
Litmaps. Litmaps, literature review software, offers automatic updates for new papers on your topic, and its pricing page lists monthly literature alerts on the free plan, with more frequent alerts on Pro at $10 a month.
An RSS reader. Put your arXiv and PubMed feeds into a feed reader and they arrive in one list, one paper per item. Inoreader, for example, has a free plan that follows up to 150 RSS feeds (pricing).
How do the options compare?
Checked on 6 November 2026 against arXiv's help on email subscriptions, RSS and availability, the PubMed User Guide, My NCBI help, Google Scholar help, Semantic Scholar's FAQ, and the pricing pages of Litmaps and Inoreader.
| Option | What you get | How it reaches you | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| arXiv email listings | Every new submission in the subject classes you pick, with abstracts | A daily email | Free | Whole arXiv categories |
| arXiv RSS | Every new paper in one or more categories | Your feed reader, updated daily | Free | Readers who already use RSS |
| PubMed with My NCBI | Every new citation matching your saved search, 1 to 200 per email | Email daily, weekly or monthly; or RSS | Free, with a free My NCBI account | Exact biomedical queries |
| Google Scholar alerts | New papers matching a search, an author or a paper's citations | Email, usually several times a week | No fee listed; no Google account needed | Keyword alerts across publishers |
| Semantic Scholar | Author, paper and topic alerts, plus recommendations from your Research Feed | Email, daily or weekly | Free | Recommendations from what you rate |
| Litmaps | Updates on new papers on your topic | Monthly on the free plan | Free plan; Pro $10 a month | A literature review in progress |
| An RSS reader | All your feeds in one list, read paper by paper | The reader's app or website | Free and paid plans; see each reader's pricing | Skimming many feeds |
| Avos News | New papers on a topic from arXiv and PubMed, summarized in a section next to the news on the same field | One newsletter email on your schedule, also on the web | Free Starter plan; the papers feed adds no credits; see pricing | Papers and news in one digest |
The official alerts are the most complete way to get every new item that matches a category or a saved search, within the limits of how each database indexes papers and how well your query is written. What they don't do is read the papers for you, or tell you what happened in your field outside the literature.
What's the best setup for your field?
- Biomedicine and health: a PubMed saved search with a My NCBI email alert, or its RSS feed in a reader.
- Preprints in physics, mathematics, computer science and the other arXiv fields: the arXiv category RSS feed or daily email listing.
- Broader discovery across publishers: Google Scholar alerts for searches and authors, or Semantic Scholar's alerts and Research Feed for recommendations.
- Summaries and the field's news in one email: Avos, with a research papers feed and a news section on the same topic.
Many people combine them: an official alert for completeness, and a digest for the overview.
How does Avos's research papers feed work?
Avos builds a personal newsletter from sections, and each section reads the feeds you give it. Research papers is one feed kind: you give it a topic, and each time the section is built it fetches new papers on that topic from arXiv and PubMed, each with its abstract. Write the topic in English, because both are searched in English.
AI then checks the papers against the section's filter, ranks what is left and writes up the ones that fit, in the format you picked, each linked to its source. A section skips papers it already sent you in recent issues, and when nothing new came out, the issue says so instead of padding it.
The useful part is what sits next to the papers: news on the same field, from a news search, institutions' RSS feeds, a podcast search or official feeds such as the FDA. A biotech reader gets the new trial papers and the regulatory news in one email. The papers feed uses no extra credits, unlike AI search or X feeds, and any RSS feed, such as an arXiv category or a PubMed search, can sit beside it.
Limits, honestly. Avos summarizes each paper's abstract, not the full text, and AI summaries can miss nuance or get a detail wrong, so open the paper before you rely on a finding. And a section selects: it writes up the new papers that best fit your filter, not every match. If you need every paper, keep the official alerts.
How do you set it up in Avos?
- Start from a template or a sentence. The Science & Health template is a weekly digest you can adapt. Or tell the AI editor: "A weekly digest on CRISPR base editing: new papers from arXiv and PubMed, then the news on the field."
- Check the papers feed. In the section's Feeds settings, add Research papers with the topic in English, such as "solid-state batteries".
- Write a filter in plain words, such as "Papers with results, not surveys".
- Pick a format. Headlines with descriptions suits a list of papers; Article (BLUF) puts the bottom line first.
- Add the news in a second section: a news search on the field and any RSS feeds you trust.
- Schedule it daily, weekly on the days you choose, or monthly, at your time and in your timezone. Generate an issue now to preview it.
For one specific result, use an alert: a news alert can watch the papers feed with a condition such as "tell me when a study comes out on GLP-1 and alcohol". Alerts check on a schedule set by your plan; news monitoring has the details.
When is another option the better choice?
- You need every paper. For a systematic review or a lab's reading log, use the arXiv and PubMed alerts: they send every match; an Avos section picks.
- Your query is precise. A PubMed search with field tags runs exactly as written in a My NCBI alert. An Avos topic is a plain-language search.
- Cost matters most. The official alerts are free. Avos has a free plan, but the briefing itself uses your plan's credits.
Where an AI news briefing gets its facts explains how Avos handles each kind of source.
FAQ
Are arXiv and PubMed alerts free?
Yes. arXiv's daily email listings and RSS feeds cost nothing, and PubMed alerts need only a free My NCBI account. Both send every new item that matches your categories or saved search, as the database indexes it.
Can I follow an arXiv keyword instead of a whole category?
arXiv's listings and RSS feeds are by category; for keywords, arXiv points to its search API. Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar alerts work on searches and topics, and Avos's research papers feed takes a topic in plain English.
Does Avos read the full paper?
No. It reads each paper's abstract, so the summary says what the authors report, and like any AI summary it can miss nuance. Every paper links to its source.
Can I get the digest in another language?
Yes. The topic must be in English, because arXiv and PubMed are searched in English, but the briefing can be written in around 50 languages, set per newsletter or per section.