1 @c \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
2 @c Uncomment 1st line before texing this file alone.
4 @c Copyright (C) 1995, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
5 @c 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7 @setfilename gnus-faq.info
8 @settitle Frequently Asked Questions
12 @node Frequently Asked Questions
13 @section Frequently Asked Questions
17 * FAQ - Introduction:: About Gnus and this FAQ.
18 * FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ:: Installation of Gnus.
19 * FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer:: Start up questions and the
20 first buffer Gnus shows you.
21 * FAQ 3 - Getting Messages:: Making Gnus read your mail
23 * FAQ 4 - Reading messages:: How to efficiently read
25 * FAQ 5 - Composing messages:: Composing mails or Usenet
27 * FAQ 6 - Old messages:: Importing, archiving,
28 searching and deleting messages.
29 * FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment:: Reading mail and news while
31 * FAQ 8 - Getting help:: When this FAQ isn't enough.
32 * FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus:: How to make Gnus faster.
33 * FAQ - Glossary:: Terms used in the FAQ
39 This is the new Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
40 If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at
41 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/},
42 the Docbook source is available from
43 @uref{http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnus/, http://sourceforge.net}.
45 Please submit features and suggestions to the
46 @email{faq-discuss@@my.gnus.org, FAQ discussion list}.
47 The list is protected against junk mail with
48 @uref{http://smarden.org/qconfirm/index.html, qconfirm}. As
49 a subscriber, your submissions will automatically pass. You can
50 also subscribe to the list by sending a blank email to
51 @email{faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org, faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org}
52 and @uref{http://mail1.kens.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-browse?command=monthbythread%26list=faq-discuss, browse
53 the archive (BROKEN)}.
63 2008-06-15: Adjust for message-fill-column. Add x-face-file.
64 Clarify difference between ding and gnu.emacs.gnus. Remove
65 reference to discontinued service.
68 2006-04-15: Added tip on how to delete sent buffer on exit.
71 @node FAQ - Introduction
72 @subheading Introduction
74 This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
76 Gnus is a Usenet Newsreader and Electronic Mail User Agent implemented
77 as a part of Emacs. It's been around in some form for almost a decade
78 now, and has been distributed as a standard part of Emacs for much of
79 that time. Gnus 5 is the latest (and greatest) incarnation. The
80 original version was called GNUS, and was written by Masanobu UMEDA.
81 When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and
82 decided to rewrite Gnus.
84 Its biggest strength is the fact that it is extremely
85 customizable. It is somewhat intimidating at first glance, but
86 most of the complexity can be ignored until you're ready to take
87 advantage of it. If you receive a reasonable volume of e-mail
88 (you're on various mailing lists), or you would like to read
89 high-volume mailing lists but cannot keep up with them, or read
90 high volume newsgroups or are just bored, then Gnus is what you
93 This FAQ was maintained by Justin Sheehy until March 2002. He
94 would like to thank Steve Baur and Per Abrahamsen for doing a wonderful
95 job with this FAQ before him. We would like to do the same - thanks,
98 If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at:
99 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/}.
100 This version is much nicer than the unofficial hypertext
101 versions that are archived at Utrecht, Oxford, Smart Pages, Ohio
102 State, and other FAQ archives. See the resources question below
103 if you want information on obtaining it in another format.
105 The information contained here was compiled with the assistance
106 of the Gnus development mailing list, and any errors or
107 misprints are the my.gnus.org team's fault, sorry.
109 @node FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ
110 @subsection Installation FAQ
113 * FAQ 1-1:: What is the latest version of Gnus?
114 * FAQ 1-2:: What's new in 5.10?
115 * FAQ 1-3:: Where and how to get Gnus?
116 * FAQ 1-4:: What to do with the tarball now?
117 * FAQ 1-5:: I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
119 * FAQ 1-6:: Which version of Emacs do I need?
120 * FAQ 1-7:: How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
124 @subsubheading Question 1.1
126 What is the latest version of Gnus?
128 @subsubheading Answer
130 Jingle please: Gnus 5.10 is released, get it while it's
131 hot! As well as the step in version number is rather
132 small, Gnus 5.10 has tons of new features which you
133 shouldn't miss. The current release (5.13) should be at
134 least as stable as the latest release of the 5.8 series.
137 @subsubheading Question 1.2
141 @subsubheading Answer
143 First of all, you should have a look into the file
144 GNUS-NEWS in the toplevel directory of the Gnus tarball,
145 there the most important changes are listed. Here's a
146 short list of the changes I find especially
147 important/interesting:
152 Major rewrite of the Gnus agent, Gnus agent is now
156 Many new article washing functions for dealing with
157 ugly formatted articles.
163 Message-utils now included in Gnus.
166 New format specifiers for summary lines, e.g. %B for
167 a complex trn-style thread tree.
171 @subsubheading Question 1.3
173 Where and how to get Gnus?
175 @subsubheading Answer
177 Gnus is released independent from releases of Emacs and XEmacs.
178 Therefore, the version bundled with Emacs or the version in XEmacs'
179 package system might not be up to date (e.g. Gnus 5.9 bundled with Emacs
181 You can get the latest released version of Gnus from
182 @uref{http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz}
183 or via anonymous FTP from
184 @uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
187 @subsubheading Question 1.4
189 What to do with the tarball now?
191 @subsubheading Answer
193 Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
194 @samp{./configure; make; make install} circle.
195 (under MS-Windows either get the Cygwin environment from
196 @uref{http://www.cygwin.com}
197 which allows you to do what's described above or unpack the
198 tarball with some packer (e.g. Winace from
199 @uref{http://www.winace.com})
200 and use the batch-file make.bat included in the tarball to install
201 Gnus.) If you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) install Gnus
202 system-wide, you can install it in your home directory and add the
203 following lines to your ~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs:
206 (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/gnus/lisp")
207 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
208 (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/")
209 (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/"))
213 Make sure that you don't have any Gnus related stuff
214 before this line, on MS Windows use something like
215 "C:/path/to/lisp" (yes, "/").
218 @subsubheading Question 1.5
220 I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
223 @subsubheading Answer
225 Oort Gnus was the name of the development version of
226 Gnus, which became Gnus 5.10 in autumn 2003. No Gnus is
227 the name of the current development version which will
228 once become Gnus 5.12 or Gnus 6. (If you're wondering why
229 not 5.11, the odd version numbers are normally used for
230 the Gnus versions bundled with Emacs)
233 @subsubheading Question 1.6
235 Which version of Emacs do I need?
237 @subsubheading Answer
239 Gnus 5.10 requires an Emacs version that is greater than or equal
240 to Emacs 20.7 or XEmacs 21.1.
241 The development versions of Gnus (aka No Gnus) requires Emacs 21
245 @subsubheading Question 1.7
247 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
249 @subsubheading Answer
251 You can't use the same copy of Gnus in both as the Lisp
252 files are byte-compiled to a format which is different
253 depending on which Emacs did the compilation. Get one copy
254 of Gnus for Emacs and one for XEmacs.
256 @node FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer
257 @subsection Startup / Group buffer
260 * FAQ 2-1:: Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
261 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean and
263 * FAQ 2-2:: Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
265 * FAQ 2-3:: How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
266 * FAQ 2-4:: My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
267 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse through
269 * FAQ 2-5:: How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
270 sort the groups in a topic?
274 @subsubheading Question 2.1
276 Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
277 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean
278 and how to prevent it?
280 @subsubheading Answer
282 This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
283 wasn't properly exited and therefor couldn't write its
284 informations to disk (e.g. which messages you read), you
285 are now asked if you want to restore those informations
286 from the auto-save file.
288 To prevent this message make sure you exit Gnus
289 via @samp{q} in group buffer instead of
293 @subsubheading Question 2.2
295 Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
298 @subsubheading Answer
300 You get the message described in the q/a pair above while
301 starting Gnus, right? It's an other symptom for the same
302 problem, so read the answer above.
305 @subsubheading Question 2.3
307 How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
309 @subsubheading Answer
311 You've got to tweak the value of the variable
312 gnus-group-line-format. See the manual node "Group Line
313 Specification" for information on how to do this. An
314 example for this (guess from whose .gnus :-)):
317 (setq gnus-group-line-format "%P%M%S[%5t]%5y : %(%g%)\n")
322 @subsubheading Question 2.4
324 My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
325 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse
328 @subsubheading Answer
330 Gnus offers the topic mode, it allows you to sort your
331 groups in, well, topics, e.g. all groups dealing with
332 Linux under the topic linux, all dealing with music under
333 the topic music and all dealing with scottish music under
334 the topic scottish which is a subtopic of music.
336 To enter topic mode, just hit t while in Group buffer. Now
337 you can use @samp{T n} to create a topic
338 at point and @samp{T m} to move a group to
339 a specific topic. For more commands see the manual or the
340 menu. You might want to include the %P specifier at the
341 beginning of your gnus-group-line-format variable to have
342 the groups nicely indented.
345 @subsubheading Question 2.5
347 How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
348 sort the groups in a topic?
350 @subsubheading Answer
352 Move point over the group you want to move and
353 hit @samp{C-k}, now move point to the
354 place where you want the group to be and
357 @node FAQ 3 - Getting Messages
358 @subsection Getting Messages
361 * FAQ 3-1:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
362 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
363 * FAQ 3-2:: I'm working under Windows and have no idea what
365 * FAQ 3-3:: My news server requires authentication, how to store
366 user name and password on disk?
367 * FAQ 3-4:: Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
368 subscribe to a group.
369 * FAQ 3-5:: Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed
370 to post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
371 * FAQ 3-6:: I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this
373 * FAQ 3-7:: And how about local spool files?
374 * FAQ 3-8:: OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to
375 read my mail with Gnus, too. How to do it?
376 * FAQ 3-9:: And what about IMAP?
377 * FAQ 3-10:: At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers,
378 can I use Gnus to read my mail from it?
379 * FAQ 3-11:: Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
384 @subsubheading Question 3.1
386 I just installed Gnus, started it via
388 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
390 @subsubheading Answer
392 You've got to tell Gnus where to fetch the news from. Read
393 the documentation for information on how to do this. As a
394 first start, put those lines in ~/.gnus.el:
397 (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.yourprovider.net"))
398 (setq user-mail-address "you@@yourprovider.net")
399 (setq user-full-name "Your Name")
404 @subsubheading Question 3.2
406 I'm working under Windows and have no idea what ~/.gnus.el means.
408 @subsubheading Answer
410 The ~/ means the home directory where Gnus and Emacs look
411 for the configuration files. However, you don't really
412 need to know what this means, it suffices that Emacs knows
413 what it means :-) You can type
414 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET }
415 (yes, with the forward slash, even on Windows), and
416 Emacs will open the right file for you. (It will most
417 likely be new, and thus empty.)
418 However, I'd discourage you from doing so, since the
419 directory Emacs chooses will most certainly not be what
420 you want, so let's do it the correct way.
421 The first thing you've got to do is to
422 create a suitable directory (no blanks in directory name
423 please) e.g. c:\myhome. Then you must set the environment
424 variable HOME to this directory. To do this under Win9x
425 or Me include the line
432 in your autoexec.bat and reboot. Under NT, 2000 and XP, hit
433 Winkey+Pause/Break to enter system options (if it doesn't work, go
434 to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced). There you'll find the
435 possibility to set environment variables. Create a new one with
436 name HOME and value C:\myhome. Rebooting is not necessary.
438 Now to create ~/.gnus.el, say
439 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET C-x C-s}.
443 @subsubheading Question 3.3
445 My news server requires authentication, how to store
446 user name and password on disk?
448 @subsubheading Answer
450 Create a file ~/.authinfo which includes for each server a line like this
453 machine news.yourprovider.net login YourUserName password YourPassword
457 Make sure that the file isn't readable to others if you
458 work on a OS which is capable of doing so. (Under Unix
461 chmod 600 ~/.authinfo
468 @subsubheading Question 3.4
470 Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
471 subscribe to a group.
473 @subsubheading Answer
475 If you know the name of the group say @samp{U
476 name.of.group RET} in group buffer (use the
477 tab-completion Luke). Otherwise hit ^ in group buffer,
478 this brings you to the server buffer. Now place point (the
479 cursor) over the server which carries the group you want,
480 hit @samp{RET}, move point to the group
481 you want to subscribe to and say @samp{u}
485 @subsubheading Question 3.5
487 Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed to
488 post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
490 @subsubheading Answer
492 Some providers allow restricted anonymous access and full
493 access only after authorization. To make Gnus send authinfo
494 to those servers append
501 to the line for those servers in ~/.authinfo.
504 @subsubheading Question 3.6
506 I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this possible?
508 @subsubheading Answer
510 Of course. You can specify more sources for articles in the
511 variable gnus-secondary-select-methods. Add something like
515 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
516 '(nntp "news.yourSecondProvider.net"))
517 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
518 '(nntp "news.yourThirdProvider.net"))
523 @subsubheading Question 3.7
525 And how about local spool files?
527 @subsubheading Answer
529 No problem, this is just one more select method called
530 nnspool, so you want this:
533 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnspool ""))
537 Or this if you don't want an NNTP Server as primary news source:
540 (setq gnus-select-method '(nnspool ""))
544 Gnus will look for the spool file in /usr/spool/news, if you
545 want something different, change the line above to something like this:
548 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
550 (nnspool-directory "/usr/local/myspoolddir")))
554 This sets the spool directory for this server only.
555 You might have to specify more stuff like the program used
556 to post articles, see the Gnus manual on how to do this.
559 @subsubheading Question 3.8
561 OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read my mail
562 with Gnus, too. How to do it?
564 @subsubheading Answer
566 That's a bit harder since there are many possible sources
567 for mail, many possible ways for storing mail and many
568 different ways for sending mail. The most common cases are
569 these: 1: You want to read your mail from a pop3 server and
570 send them directly to a SMTP Server 2: Some program like
571 fetchmail retrieves your mail and stores it on disk from
572 where Gnus shall read it. Outgoing mail is sent by
573 Sendmail, Postfix or some other MTA. Sometimes, you even
574 need a combination of the above cases.
576 However, the first thing to do is to tell Gnus in which way
577 it should store the mail, in Gnus terminology which back end
578 to use. Gnus supports many different back ends, the most
579 commonly used one is nnml. It stores every mail in one file
580 and is therefor quite fast. However you might prefer a one
581 file per group approach if your file system has problems with
582 many small files, the nnfolder back end is then probably the
583 choice for you. To use nnml add the following to ~/.gnus.el:
586 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnml ""))
590 As you might have guessed, if you want nnfolder, it's
593 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnfolder ""))
597 Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get it's mail from. If
598 it's a POP3 server, then you need something like this:
601 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
602 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(pop :server "pop.YourProvider.net"
604 :password "yourPassword")))
608 Make sure ~/.gnus.el isn't readable to others if you store
609 your password there. If you want to read your mail from a
610 traditional spool file on your local machine, it's
613 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
614 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(file :path "/path/to/spool/file"))
618 If it's a Maildir, with one file per message as used by
619 postfix, Qmail and (optionally) fetchmail it's
622 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
623 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(maildir :path "/path/to/Maildir/"
624 :subdirs ("cur" "new")))
628 And finally if you want to read your mail from several files
629 in one directory, for example because procmail already split your
633 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
634 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources
635 '(directory :path "/path/to/procmail-dir/"
640 Where :suffix ".prcml" tells Gnus only to use files with the
643 OK, now you only need to tell Gnus how to send mail. If you
644 want to send mail via sendmail (or whichever MTA is playing
645 the role of sendmail on your system), you don't need to do
646 anything. However, if you want to send your mail to an
647 SMTP Server you need the following in your ~/.gnus.el
650 (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
651 (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
652 (setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.yourProvider.net")
657 @subsubheading Question 3.9
661 @subsubheading Answer
663 There are two ways of using IMAP with Gnus. The first one is
664 to use IMAP like POP3, that means Gnus fetches the mail from
665 the IMAP server and stores it on disk. If you want to do
666 this (you don't really want to do this) add the following to
670 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(imap :server "mail.mycorp.com"
674 :authentication login
676 :fetchflag "\\Seen"))
680 You might have to tweak the values for stream and/or
681 authentication, see the Gnus manual node "Mail Source
682 Specifiers" for possible values.
684 If you want to use IMAP the way it's intended, you've got to
685 follow a different approach. You've got to add the nnimap
686 back end to your select method and give the information
687 about the server there.
690 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
691 '(nnimap "Give the baby a name"
692 (nnimap-address "imap.yourProvider.net")
694 (nnimap-list-pattern "archive.*")))
698 Again, you might have to specify how to authenticate to the
699 server if Gnus can't guess the correct way, see the Manual
700 Node "IMAP" for detailed information.
703 @subsubheading Question 3.10
705 At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can I use
706 Gnus to read my mail from it?
708 @subsubheading Answer
710 Offer your administrator a pair of new running shoes for
711 activating IMAP on the server and follow the instructions
715 @subsubheading Question 3.11
717 Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
720 @subsubheading Answer
722 First of all, that's not the way POP3 is intended to work,
723 if you have the possibility, you should use the IMAP
724 Protocol if you want your messages to stay on the
725 server. Nevertheless there might be situations where you
726 need the feature, but sadly Gnus itself has no predefined
727 functionality to do so.
729 However this is Gnus county so there are possibilities to
730 achieve what you want. The easiest way is to get an external
731 program which retrieves copies of the mail and stores them
732 on disk, so Gnus can read it from there. On Unix systems you
733 could use e.g. fetchmail for this, on MS Windows you can use
734 Hamster, an excellent local news and mail server.
736 The other solution would be, to replace the method Gnus
737 uses to get mail from POP3 servers by one which is capable
738 of leaving the mail on the server. If you use XEmacs, get
739 the package mail-lib, it includes an enhanced pop3.el,
740 look in the file, there's documentation on how to tell
741 Gnus to use it and not to delete the retrieved mail. For
742 GNU Emacs look for the file epop3.el which can do the same
743 (If you know the home of this file, please send me an
744 e-mail). You can also tell Gnus to use an external program
745 (e.g. fetchmail) to fetch your mail, see the info node
746 "Mail Source Specifiers" in the Gnus manual on how to do
749 @node FAQ 4 - Reading messages
750 @subsection Reading messages
753 * FAQ 4-1:: When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to
755 * FAQ 4-2:: How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time
756 I enter a group, even when it's read?
757 * FAQ 4-3:: How to view the headers of a message?
758 * FAQ 4-4:: How to view the raw unformatted message?
759 * FAQ 4-5:: How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
760 the top of the article buffer?
761 * FAQ 4-6:: I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
762 text part if it's available. How to do it?
763 * FAQ 4-7:: Can I use some other browser than w3 to render my
765 * FAQ 4-8:: Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted
767 * FAQ 4-9:: Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
768 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
769 highlight more interesting ones in some way?
770 * FAQ 4-10:: How can I disable threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups,
771 or set other variables specific for some groups?
772 * FAQ 4-11:: Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
774 * FAQ 4-12:: The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
775 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in mail
776 groups. Is this a bug?
777 * FAQ 4-13:: I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer,
778 how to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
779 * FAQ 4-14:: I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to
781 * FAQ 4-15:: How to split incoming mails in several groups?
785 @subsubheading Question 4.1
787 When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to view them again?
789 @subsubheading Answer
791 If you enter the group by saying
793 in group buffer with point over the group, only unread and ticked messages are loaded. Say
795 instead to load all available messages. If you want only the e.g. 300 newest say
798 Loading only unread messages can be annoying if you have threaded view enabled, say
801 (setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 'some)
805 in ~/.gnus.el to load enough old articles to prevent teared threads, replace 'some with t to load
806 all articles (Warning: Both settings enlarge the amount of data which is
807 fetched when you enter a group and slow down the process of entering a group).
809 If you already use Gnus 5.10, you can say
811 In summary buffer to load the last N messages, this feature is not available in 5.8.8
813 If you don't want all old messages, but the parent of the message you're just reading,
814 you can say @samp{^}, if you want to retrieve the whole thread
815 the message you're just reading belongs to, @samp{A T} is your friend.
818 @subsubheading Question 4.2
820 How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time I
821 enter a group, even when it's read?
823 @subsubheading Answer
825 You can tick important messages. To do this hit
826 @samp{u} while point is in summary buffer
827 over the message. When you want to remove the mark, hit
828 either @samp{d} (this deletes the tick
829 mark and set's unread mark) or @samp{M c}
830 (which deletes all marks for the message).
833 @subsubheading Question 4.3
835 How to view the headers of a message?
837 @subsubheading Answer
840 to show all headers, one more
845 @subsubheading Question 4.4
847 How to view the raw unformatted message?
849 @subsubheading Answer
853 to show the raw message
855 returns to normal view.
858 @subsubheading Question 4.5
860 How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
861 the top of the article buffer?
863 @subsubheading Answer
865 The variable gnus-visible-headers controls which headers
866 are shown, its value is a regular expression, header lines
867 which match it are shown. So if you want author, subject,
868 date, and if the header exists, Followup-To and MUA / NUA
869 say this in ~/.gnus.el:
872 (setq gnus-visible-headers
873 '("^From" "^Subject" "^Date" "^Newsgroups" "^Followup-To"
874 "^User-Agent" "^X-Newsreader" "^X-Mailer"))
879 @subsubheading Question 4.6
881 I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
882 text part if it's available. How to do it?
884 @subsubheading Answer
889 (eval-after-load "mm-decode"
891 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/html")
892 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/richtext")))
896 in ~/.gnus.el. If you don't want HTML rendered, even if there's no text alternative add
899 (setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display))
906 @subsubheading Question 4.7
908 Can I use some other browser than w3 to render my HTML-mails?
910 @subsubheading Answer
912 Only if you use Gnus 5.10 or younger. In this case you've got the
913 choice between w3, w3m, links, lynx and html2text, which
914 one is used can be specified in the variable
915 mm-text-html-renderer, so if you want links to render your
919 (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'links)
924 @subsubheading Question 4.8
926 Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted mails
929 @subsubheading Answer
931 Gnus offers you several functions to "wash" incoming mail, you can
932 find them if you browse through the menu, item
933 Article->Washing. The most interesting ones are probably "Wrap
934 long lines" (@samp{W w}), "Decode ROT13"
935 (@samp{W r}) and "Outlook Deuglify" which repairs
936 the dumb quoting used by many users of Microsoft products
937 (@samp{W Y f} gives you full deuglify.
938 See @samp{W Y C-h} or have a look at the menus for
939 other deuglifications). Outlook deuglify is only available since
943 @subsubheading Question 4.9
945 Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
946 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
947 highlight more interesting ones in some way?
949 @subsubheading Answer
951 You want Scoring. Scoring means, that you define rules
952 which assign each message an integer value. Depending on
953 the value the message is highlighted in summary buffer (if
954 it's high, say +2000) or automatically marked read (if the
955 value is low, say -800) or some other action happens.
957 There are basically three ways of setting up rules which assign
958 the scoring-value to messages. The first and easiest way is to set
959 up rules based on the article you are just reading. Say you're
960 reading a message by a guy who always writes nonsense and you want
961 to ignore his messages in the future. Hit
962 @samp{L}, to set up a rule which lowers the score.
963 Now Gnus asks you which the criteria for lowering the Score shall
964 be. Hit @samp{?} twice to see all possibilities,
965 we want @samp{a} which means the author (the from
966 header). Now Gnus wants to know which kind of matching we want.
967 Hit either @samp{e} for an exact match or
968 @samp{s} for substring-match and delete afterwards
969 everything but the name to score down all authors with the given
970 name no matter which email address is used. Now you need to tell
971 Gnus when to apply the rule and how long it should last, hit e.g.
972 @samp{p} to apply the rule now and let it last
973 forever. If you want to raise the score instead of lowering it say
974 @samp{I} instead of @samp{L}.
976 You can also set up rules by hand. To do this say @samp{V
977 f} in summary buffer. Then you are asked for the name
978 of the score file, it's name.of.group.SCORE for rules valid in
979 only one group or all.Score for rules valid in all groups. See the
980 Gnus manual for the exact syntax, basically it's one big list
981 whose elements are lists again. the first element of those lists
982 is the header to score on, then one more list with what to match,
983 which score to assign, when to expire the rule and how to do the
984 matching. If you find me very interesting, you could e.g. add the
985 following to your all.Score:
988 (("references" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 500 nil s))
989 ("message-id" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 999 nil s)))
993 This would add 999 to the score of messages written by me
994 and 500 to the score of messages which are a (possibly
995 indirect) answer to a message written by me. Of course
996 nobody with a sane mind would do this :-)
998 The third alternative is adaptive scoring. This means Gnus
999 watches you and tries to find out what you find
1000 interesting and what annoying and sets up rules
1001 which reflect this. Adaptive scoring can be a huge help
1002 when reading high traffic groups. If you want to activate
1003 adaptive scoring say
1006 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
1013 @subsubheading Question 4.10
1015 How can I disable threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups, or
1016 set other variables specific for some groups?
1018 @subsubheading Answer
1020 While in group buffer move point over the group and hit
1021 @samp{G c}, this opens a buffer where you
1022 can set options for the group. At the bottom of the buffer
1023 you'll find an item that allows you to set variables
1024 locally for the group. To disable threading enter
1025 gnus-show-threads as name of variable and nil as
1026 value. Hit button done at the top of the buffer when
1030 @subsubheading Question 4.11
1032 Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
1035 @subsubheading Answer
1037 Stop those "Can I ..." questions, the answer is always yes
1038 in Gnus Country :-). It's a three step process: First we
1039 make faces (specifications of how summary-line shall look
1040 like) for those postings, then we'll give them some
1041 special score and finally we'll tell Gnus to use the new
1042 faces. You can find detailed instructions on how to do it on
1043 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/node/view/224, my.gnus.org}
1046 @subsubheading Question 4.12
1048 The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
1049 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in
1050 mail groups. Is this a bug?
1052 @subsubheading Answer
1054 No, that's a matter of design of Gnus, fixing this would
1055 mean reimplementation of major parts of Gnus'
1056 back ends. Gnus thinks "highest-article-number -
1057 lowest-article-number = total-number-of-articles". This
1058 works OK for Usenet groups, but if you delete and move
1059 many messages in mail groups, this fails. To cure the
1060 symptom, enter the group via @samp{C-u RET}
1061 (this makes Gnus get all messages), then
1062 hit @samp{M P b} to mark all messages and
1063 then say @samp{B m name.of.group} to move
1064 all messages to the group they have been in before, they
1065 get new message numbers in this process and the count is
1066 right again (until you delete and move your mail to other
1070 @subsubheading Question 4.13
1072 I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer, how
1073 to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
1075 @subsubheading Answer
1077 You can control the windows configuration by calling the
1078 function gnus-add-configuration. The syntax is a bit
1079 complicated but explained very well in the manual node
1080 "Window Layout". Some popular examples:
1082 Instead 25% summary 75% article buffer 35% summary and 65%
1083 article (the 1.0 for article means "take the remaining
1087 (gnus-add-configuration
1088 '(article (vertical 1.0 (summary .35 point) (article 1.0))))
1092 A three pane layout, Group buffer on the left, summary
1093 buffer top-right, article buffer bottom-right:
1096 (gnus-add-configuration
1102 (summary 0.25 point)
1104 (gnus-add-configuration
1110 (summary 1.0 point)))))
1115 @subsubheading Question 4.14
1117 I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to tweak it?
1119 @subsubheading Answer
1121 You've got to play around with the variable
1122 gnus-summary-line-format. It's value is a string of
1123 symbols which stand for things like author, date, subject
1124 etc. A list of the available specifiers can be found in the
1125 manual node "Summary Buffer Lines" and the often forgotten
1126 node "Formatting Variables" and it's sub-nodes. There
1127 you'll find useful things like positioning the cursor and
1128 tabulators which allow you a summary in table form, but
1129 sadly hard tabulators are broken in 5.8.8.
1131 Since 5.10, Gnus offers you some very nice new specifiers,
1132 e.g. %B which draws a thread-tree and %&user-date which
1133 gives you a date where the details are dependent of the
1134 articles age. Here's an example which uses both:
1137 (setq gnus-summary-line-format ":%U%R %B %s %-60=|%4L |%-20,20f |%&user-date; \n")
1144 :O Re: [Richard Stallman] rfc2047.el | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:06
1145 :O Re: Revival of the ding-patches list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:12
1146 :R > Re: Find correct list of articles for a gro| 25 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:16
1147 :O \-> ... | 21 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:01
1148 :R > Re: Cry for help: deuglify.el - moving stuf| 28 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:34
1149 :O \-> ... | 115 |Raymond Scholz | 1:24
1150 :O \-> ... | 19 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |15:33
1151 :O Slow mailing list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:49
1152 :O Re: `@@' mark not documented | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:50
1153 :R > Re: Gnus still doesn't count messages prope| 23 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:57
1154 :O \-> ... | 18 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:35
1155 :O \-> ... | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt | 0:56
1160 @subsubheading Question 4.15
1162 How to split incoming mails in several groups?
1164 @subsubheading Answer
1166 Gnus offers two possibilities for splitting mail, the easy
1167 nnmail-split-methods and the more powerful Fancy Mail
1168 Splitting. I'll only talk about the first one, refer to
1169 the manual, node "Fancy Mail Splitting" for the latter.
1171 The value of nnmail-split-methods is a list, each element
1172 is a list which stands for a splitting rule. Each rule has
1173 the form "group where matching articles should go to",
1174 "regular expression which has to be matched", the first
1175 rule which matches wins. The last rule must always be a
1176 general rule (regular expression .*) which denotes where
1177 articles should go which don't match any other rule. If
1178 the folder doesn't exist yet, it will be created as soon
1179 as an article lands there. By default the mail will be
1180 send to all groups whose rules match. If you
1181 don't want that (you probably don't want), say
1184 (setq nnmail-crosspost nil)
1190 An example might be better than thousand words, so here's
1191 my nnmail-split-methods. Note that I send duplicates in a
1192 special group and that the default group is spam, since I
1193 filter all mails out which are from some list I'm
1194 subscribed to or which are addressed directly to me
1195 before. Those rules kill about 80% of the Spam which
1196 reaches me (Email addresses are changed to prevent spammers
1200 (setq nnmail-split-methods
1201 '(("duplicates" "^Gnus-Warning:.*duplicate")
1202 ("XEmacs-NT" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@xemacs.invalid.*")
1203 ("Gnus-Tut" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@socha.invalid.*")
1204 ("tcsh" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@mx.gw.invalid.*")
1205 ("BAfH" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@.*uni-muenchen.invalid.*")
1206 ("Hamster-src" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*hamster-sourcen@@yahoogroups.\\(de\\|com\\).*")
1207 ("Tagesschau" "^From: tagesschau <localpart@@www.tagesschau.invalid>$")
1208 ("Replies" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid.*")
1209 ("EK" "^From:.*\\(localpart@@privateprovider.invalid\\|localpart@@workplace.invalid\\).*")
1210 ("Spam" "^Content-Type:.*\\(ks_c_5601-1987\\|EUC-KR\\|big5\\|iso-2022-jp\\).*")
1211 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(This really work\\|XINGA\\|ADV:\\|XXX\\|adult\\|sex\\).*")
1212 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(\=\?ks_c_5601-1987\?\\|\=\?euc-kr\?\\|\=\?big5\?\\).*")
1213 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*BulkMailer.*\\|.*MIME::Lite.*\\|\\)")
1214 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*CyberCreek Avalanche\\|.*http\:\/\/GetResponse\.com\\)")
1215 ("Spam" "^From:.*\\(verizon\.net\\|prontomail\.com\\|money\\|ConsumerDirect\\).*")
1216 ("Spam" "^Delivered-To: GMX delivery to spamtrap@@gmx.invalid$")
1217 ("Spam" "^Received: from link2buy.com")
1218 ("Spam" "^CC: .*azzrael@@t-online.invalid")
1219 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer-Version: 1.50 BETA")
1220 ("Uni" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@uni-koblenz.invalid.*")
1221 ("Inbox" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*\\(my\ name\\|address@@one.invalid\\|adress@@two.invalid\\)")
1226 @node FAQ 5 - Composing messages
1227 @subsection Composing messages
1230 * FAQ 5-1:: What are the basic commands I need to know for sending
1232 * FAQ 5-2:: How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing
1234 * FAQ 5-3:: How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To,
1236 * FAQ 5-4:: Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on
1237 the group I post too?
1238 * FAQ 5-5:: Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly
1240 * FAQ 5-6:: Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting
1242 * FAQ 5-7:: Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't
1243 remember all those email addresses?
1244 * FAQ 5-8:: Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1245 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my postings,
1247 * FAQ 5-9:: Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
1248 newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
1250 * FAQ 5-10:: How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1251 * FAQ 5-11:: I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1253 * FAQ 5-12:: I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending
1254 instead of keeping it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
1255 * FAQ 5-13:: People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
1256 aren't they and how to fix it?
1260 @subsubheading Question 5.1
1262 What are the basic commands I need to know for sending mail and postings?
1264 @subsubheading Answer
1266 To start composing a new mail hit @samp{m}
1267 either in Group or Summary buffer, for a posting, it's
1268 either @samp{a} in Group buffer and
1269 filling the Newsgroups header manually
1270 or @samp{a} in the Summary buffer of the
1271 group where the posting shall be send to. Replying by mail
1273 @samp{r} if you don't want to cite the
1274 author, or import the cited text manually and
1275 @samp{R} to cite the text of the original
1276 message. For a follow up to a newsgroup, it's
1277 @samp{f} and @samp{F}
1278 (analogously to @samp{r} and
1281 Enter new headers above the line saying "--text follows
1282 this line--", enter the text below the line. When ready
1283 hit @samp{C-c C-c}, to send the message,
1284 if you want to finish it later hit @samp{C-c
1285 C-d} to save it in the drafts group, where you
1286 can start editing it again by saying @samp{D
1290 @subsubheading Question 5.2
1292 How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing messages?
1294 @subsubheading Answer
1296 Starting from No Gnus, automatic word-wrap is already enabled by
1297 default, see the variable message-fill-column.
1299 For other versions of Gnus, say
1302 (unless (boundp 'message-fill-column)
1303 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
1305 (setq fill-column 72)
1306 (turn-on-auto-fill))))
1312 You can reformat a paragraph by hitting @samp{M-q}
1316 @subsubheading Question 5.3
1318 How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To, signature...?
1320 @subsubheading Answer
1322 There are other ways, but you should use posting styles
1323 for this. (See below why).
1324 This example should make the syntax clear:
1327 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1329 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1330 (address "me@@there.invalid")
1331 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1332 (signature-file "~/.signature")
1333 ("X-SampleHeader" "foobar")
1334 (eval (setq some-variable "Foo bar")))))
1338 The ".*" means that this settings are the default ones
1339 (see below), valid values for the first element of the
1340 following lists are signature, signature-file,
1341 organization, address, name or body. The attribute name
1342 can also be a string. In that case, this will be used as
1343 a header name, and the value will be inserted in the
1344 headers of the article; if the value is `nil', the header
1345 name will be removed. You can also say (eval (foo bar)),
1346 then the function foo will be evaluated with argument bar
1347 and the result will be thrown away.
1350 @subsubheading Question 5.4
1352 Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on the group I post too?
1354 @subsubheading Answer
1356 That's the strength of posting styles. Before, we used ".*"
1357 to set the default for all groups. You can use a regexp
1358 like "^gmane" and the following settings are only applied
1359 to postings you send to the gmane hierarchy, use
1360 ".*binaries" instead and they will be applied to postings
1361 send to groups containing the string binaries in their
1364 You can instead of specifying a regexp specify a function
1365 which is evaluated, only if it returns true, the
1366 corresponding settings take effect. Two interesting
1367 candidates for this are message-news-p which returns t if
1368 the current Group is a newsgroup and the corresponding
1371 Note that all forms that match are applied, that means in
1372 the example below, when I post to
1373 gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general, the settings under
1374 ".*" are applied and the settings under message-news-p and
1375 those under "^gmane" and those under
1376 "^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$". Because
1377 of this put general settings at the top and specific ones
1381 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1383 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1384 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1385 (signature-file "~/.signature"))
1386 ((message-news-p) ;;Usenet news?
1387 (address "mySpamTrap@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1388 (reply-to "hereRealRepliesOnlyPlease@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1389 ((message-mail-p) ;;mail?
1390 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1391 ("^gmane" ;;this is mail, too in fact
1392 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1394 ("^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$"
1395 (eval (set (make-local-variable 'message-sendmail-envelope-from)
1396 "Azzrael@@rz-online.de")))))
1401 @subsubheading Question 5.5
1403 Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly spell-checking?
1405 @subsubheading Answer
1407 You can use ispell.el to spell-check stuff in Emacs. So the
1408 first thing to do is to make sure that you've got either
1409 @uref{http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/fmg-members/geoff/ispell.html, ispell}
1410 or @uref{http://aspell.sourceforge.net/, aspell}
1411 installed and in your Path. Then you need
1412 @uref{http://www.kdstevens.com/~stevens/ispell-page.html, ispell.el}
1413 and for on-the-fly spell-checking
1414 @uref{http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html, flyspell.el}.
1415 Ispell.el is shipped with Emacs and available through the XEmacs package system,
1416 flyspell.el is shipped with Emacs and part of XEmacs text-modes package which is
1417 available through the package system, so there should be no need to install them
1420 Ispell.el assumes you use ispell, if you choose aspell say
1423 (setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
1427 in your Emacs configuration file.
1429 If you want your outgoing messages to be spell-checked, say
1432 (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
1436 In your ~/.gnus.el, if you prefer on-the-fly spell-checking say
1439 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (flyspell-mode 1)))
1444 @subsubheading Question 5.6
1446 Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting to?
1448 @subsubheading Answer
1450 Yes, say something like
1453 (add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook
1457 "^de\\." (gnus-group-real-name gnus-newsgroup-name))
1458 (ispell-change-dictionary "deutsch8"))
1460 (ispell-change-dictionary "english")))))
1464 in ~/.gnus.el. Change "^de\\." and "deutsch8" to something
1465 that suits your needs.
1468 @subsubheading Question 5.7
1470 Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't remember
1471 all those email addresses?
1473 @subsubheading Answer
1475 There's an very basic solution for this, mail aliases.
1476 You can store your mail addresses in a ~/.mailrc file using a simple
1480 alias al "Al <al@@english-heritage.invalid>"
1484 Then typing your alias (followed by a space or punctuation
1485 character) on a To: or Cc: line in the message buffer will
1486 cause Gnus to insert the full address for you. See the
1487 node "Mail Aliases" in Message (not Gnus) manual for
1490 However, what you really want is the Insidious Big Brother
1491 Database bbdb. Get it through the XEmacs package system or from
1492 @uref{http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/, bbdb's homepage}.
1493 Now place the following in ~/.gnus.el, to activate bbdb for Gnus:
1497 (bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)
1501 Now you probably want some general bbdb configuration,
1502 place them in ~/.emacs:
1506 ;;If you don't live in Northern America, you should disable the
1507 ;;syntax check for telephone numbers by saying
1508 (setq bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil)
1509 ;;Tell bbdb about your email address:
1510 (setq bbdb-user-mail-names
1511 (regexp-opt '("Your.Email@@here.invalid"
1512 "Your.other@@mail.there.invalid")))
1513 ;;cycling while completing email addresses
1514 (setq bbdb-complete-name-allow-cycling t)
1516 (setq bbdb-use-pop-up nil)
1520 Now you should be ready to go. Say @samp{M-x bbdb RET
1521 RET} to open a bbdb buffer showing all
1522 entries. Say @samp{c} to create a new
1523 entry, @samp{b} to search your BBDB and
1524 @samp{C-o} to add a new field to an
1525 entry. If you want to add a sender to the BBDB you can
1526 also just hit `:' on the posting in the summary buffer and
1527 you are done. When you now compose a new mail,
1528 hit @samp{TAB} to cycle through know
1532 @subsubheading Question 5.8
1534 Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1535 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my
1538 @subsubheading Answer
1540 Those images are called X-Faces. They are 48*48 pixel b/w
1541 pictures, encoded in a header line. If you want to include
1542 one in your posts, you've got to convert some image to a
1543 X-Face. So fire up some image manipulation program (say
1544 Gimp), open the image you want to include, cut out the
1545 relevant part, reduce color depth to 1 bit, resize to
1546 48*48 and save as bitmap. Now you should get the compface
1548 @uref{ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/, this site}.
1549 and create the actual X-face by saying
1552 cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon | compface > file.face
1553 cat file.face | sed 's/\\/\\\\/g;s/\"/\\\"/g;' > file.face.quoted
1557 If you can't use compface, there's an online X-face converter at
1558 @uref{http://www.dairiki.org/xface/}.
1559 If you use MS Windows, you could also use the WinFace program from
1560 @uref{http://www.xs4all.nl/~walterln/winface/}.
1561 Now you only have to tell Gnus to include the X-face in your postings by saying
1564 (setq message-default-headers
1567 (insert-file-contents "~/.xface")
1572 in ~/.gnus.el. If you use Gnus 5.10, you can simply add an entry
1575 (x-face-file "~/.xface")
1579 to gnus-posting-styles.
1582 @subsubheading Question 5.9
1584 Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
1585 newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
1588 @subsubheading Answer
1590 Put this in ~/.gnus.el:
1593 (setq gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news t)
1597 if you already use Gnus 5.10, if you still use 5.8.8 or
1598 5.9 try this instead:
1601 (eval-after-load "gnus-msg"
1602 '(unless (boundp 'gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news)
1603 (defadvice gnus-summary-reply (around reply-in-news activate)
1604 "Request confirmation when replying to news."
1606 (when (or (not (gnus-news-group-p gnus-newsgroup-name))
1607 (y-or-n-p "Really reply by mail to article author? "))
1613 @subsubheading Question 5.10
1615 How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1617 @subsubheading Answer
1619 Since 5.10 Gnus doesn't generate a sender header by
1620 default. For older Gnus' try this in ~/.gnus.el:
1623 (eval-after-load "message"
1624 '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
1629 @subsubheading Question 5.11
1631 I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1634 @subsubheading Answer
1636 You must set the variable gnus-message-archive-group to do
1637 this. You can set it to a string giving the name of the
1638 group where the copies shall go or like in the example
1639 below use a function which is evaluated and which returns
1643 (setq gnus-message-archive-group
1644 '((if (message-news-p)
1651 @subsubheading Question 5.12
1653 I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending instead of keeping
1654 it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
1656 @subsubheading Answer
1658 Add this to your ~/.gnus:
1661 (setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)
1666 @subsubheading Question 5.13
1668 People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
1669 aren't they and how to fix it?
1671 @subsubheading Answer
1673 The message-ID is an unique identifier for messages you
1674 send. To make it unique, Gnus need to know which machine
1675 name to put after the "@@". If the name of the machine
1676 where Gnus is running isn't suitable (it probably isn't
1677 at most private machines) you can tell Gnus what to use
1681 (setq message-user-fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld")
1685 in ~/.gnus.el. If you use Gnus 5.9 or earlier, you can use this
1686 instead (works for newer versions as well):
1689 (eval-after-load "message"
1690 '(let ((fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld"));; <-- Edit this!
1691 (if (boundp 'message-user-fqdn)
1692 (setq message-user-fqdn fqdn)
1693 (gnus-message 1 "Redefining `message-make-fqdn'.")
1694 (defun message-make-fqdn ()
1695 "Return user's fully qualified domain name."
1700 If you have no idea what to insert for
1701 "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", you've got several
1702 choices. You can either ask your provider if he allows
1703 you to use something like
1704 yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, or you can use
1705 somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain
1706 yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which
1707 gives private users a FQDN for free.
1709 Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID
1710 for News at all (and letting the server do the job) by saying
1713 (setq message-required-news-headers
1714 (remove' Message-ID message-required-news-headers))
1718 you can also tell Gnus not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying
1721 (setq message-required-mail-headers
1722 (remove' Message-ID message-required-mail-headers))
1726 , however some mail servers don't generate proper
1727 Message-IDs, too, so test if your Mail Server behaves
1728 correctly by sending yourself a Mail and looking at the Message-ID.
1730 @node FAQ 6 - Old messages
1731 @subsection Old messages
1734 * FAQ 6-1:: How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1735 * FAQ 6-2:: How to archive interesting messages?
1736 * FAQ 6-3:: How to search for a specific message?
1737 * FAQ 6-4:: How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1738 * FAQ 6-5:: I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
1739 some groups). How to do it?
1740 * FAQ 6-6:: I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move
1741 them to another group.
1745 @subsubheading Question 6.1
1747 How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1749 @subsubheading Answer
1751 The easiest way is to tell your old mail program to
1752 export the messages in mbox format. Most Unix mailers
1753 are able to do this, if you come from the MS Windows
1754 world, you may find tools at
1755 @uref{http://mbx2mbox.sourceforge.net/}.
1757 Now you've got to import this mbox file into Gnus. To do
1758 this, create a nndoc group based on the mbox file by
1759 saying @samp{G f /path/file.mbox RET} in
1760 Group buffer. You now have read-only access to your
1761 mail. If you want to import the messages to your normal
1762 Gnus mail groups hierarchy, enter the nndoc group you've
1763 just created by saying @samp{C-u RET}
1764 (thus making sure all messages are retrieved), mark all
1765 messages by saying @samp{M P b} and
1766 either copy them to the desired group by saying
1767 @samp{B c name.of.group RET} or send them
1768 through nnmail-split-methods (respool them) by saying
1772 @subsubheading Question 6.2
1774 How to archive interesting messages?
1776 @subsubheading Answer
1778 If you stumble across an interesting message, say in
1779 gnu.emacs.gnus and want to archive it there are several
1780 solutions. The first and easiest is to save it to a file
1781 by saying @samp{O f}. However, wouldn't
1782 it be much more convenient to have more direct access to
1783 the archived message from Gnus? If you say yes, put this
1784 snippet by Frank Haun <pille3003@@fhaun.de> in
1788 (defun my-archive-article (&optional n)
1789 "Copies one or more article(s) to a corresponding `nnml:' group, e.g.
1790 `gnus.ding' goes to `nnml:1.gnus.ding'. And `nnml:List-gnus.ding' goes
1791 to `nnml:1.List-gnus-ding'.
1793 Use process marks or mark a region in the summary buffer to archive
1794 more then one article."
1799 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
1800 (replace-in-string gnus-newsgroup-name "^.*:" "")
1801 (replace-regexp-in-string "^.*:" "" gnus-newsgroup-name)))))
1802 (gnus-summary-copy-article n archive-name)))
1806 You can now say @samp{M-x
1807 my-archive-article} in summary buffer to
1808 archive the article under the cursor in a nnml
1809 group. (Change nnml to your preferred back end)
1811 Of course you can also make sure the cache is enabled by saying
1814 (setq gnus-use-cache t)
1818 then you only have to set either the tick or the dormant
1819 mark for articles you want to keep, setting the read
1820 mark will remove them from cache.
1823 @subsubheading Question 6.3
1825 How to search for a specific message?
1827 @subsubheading Answer
1829 There are several ways for this, too. For a posting from
1830 a Usenet group the easiest solution is probably to ask
1831 @uref{http://groups.google.com, groups.google.com},
1832 if you found the posting there, tell Google to display
1833 the raw message, look for the message-id, and say
1834 @samp{M-^ the@@message.id RET} in a
1836 Since Gnus 5.10 there's also a Gnus interface for
1837 groups.google.com which you can call with
1838 @samp{G W}) in group buffer.
1840 Another idea which works for both mail and news groups
1841 is to enter the group where the message you are
1842 searching is and use the standard Emacs search
1843 @samp{C-s}, it's smart enough to look at
1844 articles in collapsed threads, too. If you want to
1845 search bodies, too try @samp{M-s}
1846 instead. Further on there are the
1847 gnus-summary-limit-to-foo functions, which can help you,
1850 Of course you can also use grep to search through your
1851 local mail, but this is both slow for big archives and
1852 inconvenient since you are not displaying the found mail
1853 in Gnus. Here comes nnir into action. Nnir is a front end
1854 to search engines like swish-e or swish++ and
1855 others. You index your mail with one of those search
1856 engines and with the help of nnir you can search trough
1857 the indexed mail and generate a temporary group with all
1858 messages which met your search criteria. If this sound
1859 cool to you get nnir.el from
1860 @uref{ftp://ls6-ftp.cs.uni-dortmund.de/pub/src/emacs/}
1861 or @uref{ftp://ftp.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de/pub/src/emacs/}.
1862 Instructions on how to use it are at the top of the file.
1865 @subsubheading Question 6.4
1867 How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1869 @subsubheading Answer
1871 You can of course just mark the mail you don't need
1872 anymore by saying @samp{#} with point
1873 over the mail and then say @samp{B DEL}
1874 to get rid of them forever. You could also instead of
1875 actually deleting them, send them to a junk-group by
1876 saying @samp{B m nnml:trash-bin} which
1877 you clear from time to time, but both are not the intended
1880 In Gnus, we let mail expire like news expires on a news
1881 server. That means you tell Gnus the message is
1882 expirable (you tell Gnus "I don't need this mail
1883 anymore") by saying @samp{E} with point
1884 over the mail in summary buffer. Now when you leave the
1885 group, Gnus looks at all messages which you marked as
1886 expirable before and if they are old enough (default is
1887 older than a week) they are deleted.
1890 @subsubheading Question 6.5
1892 I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
1893 some groups). How to do it?
1895 @subsubheading Answer
1897 If you want all read messages to be expired (e.g. in
1898 mailing lists where there's an online archive), you've
1899 got two choices: auto-expire and
1900 total-expire. Auto-expire means, that every article
1901 which has no marks set and is selected for reading is
1902 marked as expirable, Gnus hits @samp{E}
1903 for you every time you read a message. Total-expire
1904 follows a slightly different approach, here all article
1905 where the read mark is set are expirable.
1907 To activate auto-expire, include auto-expire in the
1908 Group parameters for the group. (Hit @samp{G
1909 c} in summary buffer with point over the
1910 group to change group parameters). For total-expire add
1911 total-expire to the group-parameters.
1913 Which method you choose is merely a matter of taste:
1914 Auto-expire is faster, but it doesn't play together with
1915 Adaptive Scoring, so if you want to use this feature,
1916 you should use total-expire.
1918 If you want a message to be excluded from expiration in
1919 a group where total or auto expire is active, set either
1920 tick (hit @samp{u}) or dormant mark (hit
1921 @samp{u}), when you use auto-expire, you
1922 can also set the read mark (hit
1926 @subsubheading Question 6.6
1928 I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move them
1931 @subsubheading Answer
1933 Say something like this in ~/.gnus.el:
1936 (setq nnmail-expiry-target "nnml:expired")
1940 (If you want to change the value of nnmail-expiry-target
1941 on a per group basis see the question "How can I disable
1942 threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups, or set other
1943 variables specific for some groups?")
1945 @node FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment
1946 @subsection Gnus in a dial-up environment
1949 * FAQ 7-1:: I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can I
1950 minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1951 * FAQ 7-2:: So what was this thing about the Agent?
1952 * FAQ 7-3:: I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do
1954 * FAQ 7-4:: How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
1959 @subsubheading Question 7.1
1961 I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can
1962 I minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1964 @subsubheading Answer
1966 You've got basically two options: Either you use the
1967 Gnus Agent (see below) for this, or you can install
1968 programs which fetch your news and mail to your local
1969 disk and Gnus reads the stuff from your local
1972 If you want to follow the second approach, you need a
1973 program which fetches news and offers them to Gnus, a
1974 program which does the same for mail and a program which
1975 receives the mail you write from Gnus and sends them
1978 Let's talk about Unix systems first: For the news part,
1979 the easiest solution is a small nntp server like
1980 @uref{http://www.leafnode.org/, Leafnode} or
1981 @uref{http://infa.abo.fi/~patrik/sn/, sn},
1982 of course you can also install a full featured news
1984 @uref{http://www.isc.org/products/INN/, inn}.
1985 Then you want to fetch your Mail, popular choices
1986 are @uref{http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/, fetchmail}
1987 and @uref{http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/, getmail}.
1988 You should tell those to write the mail to your disk and
1989 Gnus to read it from there. Last but not least the mail
1990 sending part: This can be done with every MTA like
1991 @uref{http://www.sendmail.org/, sendmail},
1992 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, postfix},
1993 @uref{http://www.exim.org/, exim} or
1994 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, qmail}.
1996 On windows boxes I'd vote for
1997 @uref{http://www.tglsoft.de/, Hamster},
1998 it's a small freeware, open-source program which fetches
1999 your mail and news from remote servers and offers them
2000 to Gnus (or any other mail and/or news reader) via nntp
2001 respectively POP3 or IMAP. It also includes a smtp
2002 server for receiving mails from Gnus.
2005 @subsubheading Question 7.2
2007 So what was this thing about the Agent?
2009 @subsubheading Answer
2011 The Gnus agent is part of Gnus, it allows you to fetch
2012 mail and news and store them on disk for reading them
2013 later when you're offline. It kind of mimics offline
2014 newsreaders like e.g. Forte Agent. If you want to use
2015 the Agent place the following in ~/.gnus.el if you are
2016 still using 5.8.8 or 5.9 (it's the default since 5.10):
2023 Now you've got to select the servers whose groups can be
2024 stored locally. To do this, open the server buffer
2025 (that is press @samp{^} while in the
2026 group buffer). Now select a server by moving point to
2027 the line naming that server. Finally, agentize the
2028 server by typing @samp{J a}. If you
2029 make a mistake, or change your mind, you can undo this
2030 action by typing @samp{J r}. When
2031 you're done, type 'q' to return to the group buffer.
2032 Now the next time you enter a group on a agentized
2033 server, the headers will be stored on disk and read from
2034 there the next time you enter the group.
2037 @subsubheading Question 7.3
2039 I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do it?
2041 @subsubheading Answer
2043 You can tell the agent to automatically fetch the bodies
2044 of articles which fulfill certain predicates, this is
2045 done in a special buffer which can be reached by
2046 saying @samp{J c} in group
2047 buffer. Please refer to the documentation for
2048 information which predicates are possible and how
2051 Further on you can tell the agent manually which
2052 articles to store on disk. There are two ways to do
2053 this: Number one: In the summary buffer, process mark a
2054 set of articles that shall be stored in the agent by
2055 saying @samp{#} with point over the
2056 article and then type @samp{J s}. The
2057 other possibility is to set, again in the summary
2058 buffer, downloadable (%) marks for the articles you
2059 want by typing @samp{@@} with point over
2060 the article and then typing @samp{J u}.
2061 What's the difference? Well, process marks are erased as
2062 soon as you exit the summary buffer while downloadable
2063 marks are permanent. You can actually set downloadable
2064 marks in several groups then use fetch session ('J s' in
2065 the GROUP buffer) to fetch all of those articles. The
2066 only downside is that fetch session also fetches all of
2067 the headers for every selected group on an agentized
2068 server. Depending on the volume of headers, the initial
2069 fetch session could take hours.
2072 @subsubheading Question 7.4
2074 How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
2077 @subsubheading Answer
2079 All you've got to do is to tell Gnus when you are online
2080 (plugged) and when you are offline (unplugged), the rest
2081 works automatically. You can toggle plugged/unplugged
2082 state by saying @samp{J j} in group
2083 buffer. To start Gnus unplugged say @samp{M-x
2084 gnus-unplugged} instead of
2085 @samp{M-x gnus}. Note that for this to
2086 work, the agent must be active.
2088 @node FAQ 8 - Getting help
2089 @subsection Getting help
2092 * FAQ 8-1:: How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2093 * FAQ 8-2:: I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X (e.g.
2094 attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2095 * FAQ 8-3:: Which websites should I know?
2096 * FAQ 8-4:: Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2097 * FAQ 8-5:: Where to report bugs?
2098 * FAQ 8-6:: I need real-time help, where to find it?
2102 @subsubheading Question 8.1
2104 How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2106 @subsubheading Answer
2108 The first stop should be the Gnus manual (Say
2109 @samp{C-h i d m Gnus RET} to start the
2110 Gnus manual, then walk through the menus or do a
2111 full-text search with @samp{s}). Then
2112 there are the general Emacs help commands starting with
2113 C-h, type @samp{C-h ? ?} to get a list
2114 of all available help commands and their meaning. Finally
2115 @samp{M-x apropos-command} lets you
2116 search through all available functions and @samp{M-x
2117 apropos} searches the bound variables.
2120 @subsubheading Question 8.2
2122 I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X
2123 (e.g. attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2125 @subsubheading Answer
2127 There's not only the Gnus manual but also the manuals
2128 for message, emacs-mime, sieve and pgg. Those packages
2129 are distributed with Gnus and used by Gnus but aren't
2130 really part of core Gnus, so they are documented in
2131 different info files, you should have a look in those
2135 @subsubheading Question 8.3
2137 Which websites should I know?
2139 @subsubheading Answer
2141 The two most important ones are the
2142 @uref{http://www.gnus.org, official Gnus website}.
2143 and it's sister site
2144 @uref{http://my.gnus.org, my.gnus.org (MGO)},
2145 hosting an archive of lisp snippets, howtos, a (not
2146 really finished) tutorial and this FAQ.
2148 Tell me about other sites which are interesting.
2151 @subsubheading Question 8.4
2153 Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2155 @subsubheading Answer
2157 There's the newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus (also available as
2158 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.user,
2159 gmane.emacs.gnus.user}) which deals with general Gnus
2160 questions. If you have questions about development versions of
2161 Gnus, you should better ask on the ding mailing list, see below.
2163 If you want to stay in the big8,
2164 news.software.readers is also read by some Gnus
2165 users (but chances for qualified help are much better in
2166 the above groups). If you speak German, there's
2167 de.comm.software.gnus.
2169 The ding mailing list (ding@@gnus.org) deals with development of
2170 Gnus. You can read the ding list via NNTP, too under the name
2171 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general,
2172 gmane.emacs.gnus.general} from news.gmane.org.
2175 @subsubheading Question 8.5
2177 Where to report bugs?
2179 @subsubheading Answer
2181 Say @samp{M-x gnus-bug}, this will start
2183 @email{bugs@@gnus.org, gnus bug mailing list}
2184 including information about your environment which make
2185 it easier to help you.
2188 @subsubheading Question 8.6
2190 I need real-time help, where to find it?
2192 @subsubheading Answer
2194 Point your IRC client to irc.freenode.net, channel #gnus.
2196 @node FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus
2197 @subsection Tuning Gnus
2200 * FAQ 9-1:: Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2201 * FAQ 9-2:: How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2202 * FAQ 9-3:: Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2206 @subsubheading Question 9.1
2208 Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2210 @subsubheading Answer
2212 The reason for this could be the way Gnus reads it's
2213 active file, see the node "The Active File" in the Gnus
2214 manual for things you might try to speed the process up.
2215 An other idea would be to byte compile your ~/.gnus.el (say
2216 @samp{M-x byte-compile-file RET ~/.gnus.el
2217 RET} to do it). Finally, if you have require
2218 statements in your .gnus, you could replace them with
2219 eval-after-load, which loads the stuff not at startup
2220 time, but when it's needed. Say you've got this in your
2225 (add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled))
2229 then as soon as you start Gnus, message.el is loaded. If
2233 (eval-after-load "message"
2234 '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
2238 it's loaded when it's needed.
2241 @subsubheading Question 9.2
2243 How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2245 @subsubheading Answer
2247 A speed killer is setting the variable
2248 gnus-fetch-old-headers to anything different from nil,
2249 so don't do this if speed is an issue. To speed up
2250 building of summary say
2257 at the bottom of your ~/.gnus.el, this will make gnus
2258 byte-compile things like
2259 gnus-summary-line-format.
2260 then you could increase the value of gc-cons-threshold
2261 by saying something like
2264 (setq gc-cons-threshold 3500000)
2268 in ~/.emacs. If you don't care about width of CJK
2269 characters or use Gnus 5.10 or younger together with a
2270 recent GNU Emacs, you should say
2273 (setq gnus-use-correct-string-widths nil)
2277 in ~/.gnus.el (thanks to Jesper harder for the last
2278 two suggestions). Finally if you are still using 5.8.8
2279 or 5.9 and experience speed problems with summary
2280 buffer generation, you definitely should update to
2281 5.10 since there quite some work on improving it has
2285 @subsubheading Question 9.3
2287 Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2289 @subsubheading Answer
2291 The reason could be that you told Gnus to archive the
2292 messages you wrote by setting
2293 gnus-message-archive-group. Try to use a nnml group
2294 instead of an archive group, this should bring you back
2297 @node FAQ - Glossary
2298 @subsection Glossary
2303 When the term ~/.gnus.el is used it just means your Gnus
2304 configuration file. You might as well call it ~/.gnus or
2305 specify another name.
2308 In Gnus terminology a back end is a virtual server, a layer
2309 between core Gnus and the real NNTP-, POP3-, IMAP- or
2310 whatever-server which offers Gnus a standardized interface
2311 to functions like "get message", "get Headers" etc.
2314 When the term Emacs is used in this FAQ, it means either GNU
2318 In this FAQ message means a either a mail or a posting to a
2319 Usenet Newsgroup or to some other fancy back end, no matter
2320 of which kind it is.
2323 MUA is an acronym for Mail User Agent, it's the program you
2324 use to read and write e-mails.
2327 NUA is an acronym for News User Agent, it's the program you
2328 use to read and write Usenet news.