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 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6 @c Do not modify this file, it was generated from gnus-faq.xml, available from
7 @c <URL:http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/>.
9 @setfilename gnus-faq.info
10 @settitle Frequently Asked Questions
14 @node Frequently Asked Questions
15 @section Frequently Asked Questions
19 * FAQ - Introduction:: About Gnus and this FAQ.
20 * FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ:: Installation of Gnus.
21 * FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer:: Start up questions and the
22 first buffer Gnus shows you.
23 * FAQ 3 - Getting Messages:: Making Gnus read your mail
25 * FAQ 4 - Reading messages:: How to efficiently read
27 * FAQ 5 - Composing messages:: Composing mails or Usenet
29 * FAQ 6 - Old messages:: Importing, archiving,
30 searching and deleting messages.
31 * FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment:: Reading mail and news while
33 * FAQ 8 - Getting help:: When this FAQ isn't enough.
34 * FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus:: How to make Gnus faster.
35 * FAQ - Glossary:: Terms used in the FAQ
41 This is the new Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
42 If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at
43 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/},
44 the Docbook source is available from
45 @uref{http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnus/, http://sourceforge.net}.
47 Please submit features and suggestions to the
48 @email{faq-discuss@@my.gnus.org, FAQ discussion list}.
49 The list is protected against junk mail with
50 @uref{http://smarden.org/qconfirm/index.html, qconfirm}. As
51 a subscriber, your submissions will automatically pass. You can
52 also subscribe to the list by sending a blank email to
53 @email{faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org, faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org}
54 and @uref{http://mail1.kens.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-browse?command=monthbythread%26list=faq-discuss, browse
55 the archive (BROKEN)}.
65 Updated FAQ to reflect release of Gnus 5.10 and start of
69 @node FAQ - Introduction
70 @subheading Introduction
72 This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
74 Gnus is a Usenet Newsreader and Electronic Mail User Agent implemented
75 as a part of Emacs. It's been around in some form for almost a decade
76 now, and has been distributed as a standard part of Emacs for much of
77 that time. Gnus 5 is the latest (and greatest) incarnation. The
78 original version was called GNUS, and was written by Masanobu UMEDA.
79 When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and
80 decided to rewrite Gnus.
82 Its biggest strength is the fact that it is extremely
83 customizable. It is somewhat intimidating at first glance, but
84 most of the complexity can be ignored until you're ready to take
85 advantage of it. If you receive a reasonable volume of e-mail
86 (you're on various mailing lists), or you would like to read
87 high-volume mailing lists but cannot keep up with them, or read
88 high volume newsgroups or are just bored, then Gnus is what you
91 This FAQ was maintained by Justin Sheehy until March 2002. He
92 would like to thank Steve Baur and Per Abrahamsen for doing a wonderful
93 job with this FAQ before him. We would like to do the same - thanks,
96 If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at:
97 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/}.
98 This version is much nicer than the unofficial hypertext
99 versions that are archived at Utrecht, Oxford, Smart Pages, Ohio
100 State, and other FAQ archives. See the resources question below
101 if you want information on obtaining it in another format.
103 The information contained here was compiled with the assistance
104 of the Gnus development mailing list, and any errors or
105 misprints are the my.gnus.org team's fault, sorry.
107 @node FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ
108 @subsection Installation FAQ
111 * [1.1]:: What is the latest version of Gnus?
112 * [1.2]:: What's new in 5.10?
113 * [1.3]:: Where and how to get Gnus?
114 * [1.4]:: What to do with the tarball now?
115 * [1.5]:: I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus, what
117 * [1.6]:: Which version of Emacs do I need?
118 * [1.7]:: How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
122 @subsubheading Question 1.1
124 What is the latest version of Gnus?
126 @subsubheading Answer
128 Jingle please: Gnus 5.10 is released, get it while it's
129 hot! As well as the step in version number is rather
130 small, Gnus 5.10 has tons of new features which you
131 shouldn't miss. The current release (5.10.6) should be at
132 least as stable as the latest release of the 5.8 series.
135 @subsubheading Question 1.2
139 @subsubheading Answer
141 First of all, you should have a look into the file
142 GNUS-NEWS in the toplevel directory of the Gnus tarball,
143 there the most important changes are listed. Here's a
144 short list of the changes I find especially
145 important/interesting:
150 Major rewrite of the Gnus agent, Gnus agent is now
154 Many new article washing functions for dealing with
155 ugly formatted articles.
161 Message-utils now included in Gnus.
164 New format specifiers for summary lines, e.g. %B for
165 a complex trn-style thread tree.
169 @subsubheading Question 1.3
171 Where and how to get Gnus?
173 @subsubheading Answer
175 The latest released version of Gnus isn't included in
176 Emacs 21, therefor you should get the Gnus tarball from
177 @uref{http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz}
178 or via anonymous FTP from
179 @uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
180 If you use XEmacs instead of Emacs you can use XEmacs'
181 package system instead.
184 @subsubheading Question 1.4
186 What to do with the tarball now?
188 @subsubheading Answer
190 Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
191 @samp{./configure; make; make install} circle.
192 (under MS-Windows either get the Cygwin environment from
193 @uref{http://www.cygwin.com}
194 which allows you to do what's described above or unpack the
195 tarball with some packer (e.g. Winace from
196 @uref{http://www.winace.com})
197 and use the batch-file make.bat included in the tarball to install
198 Gnus.) If you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) install Gnus
199 system-wide, you can install it in your home directory and add the
200 following lines to your ~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs:
203 (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/gnus/lisp")
204 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
205 (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/")
206 (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/"))
210 Make sure that you don't have any Gnus related stuff
211 before this line, on MS Windows use something like
212 "C:/path/to/lisp" (yes, "/").
215 @subsubheading Question 1.5
217 I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
220 @subsubheading Answer
222 Oort Gnus was the name of the development version of
223 Gnus, which became Gnus 5.10 in autumn 2003. No Gnus is
224 the name of the current development version which will
225 once become Gnus 5.12 or Gnus 6. (If you're wondering why
226 not 5.11, the odd version numbers are normally used for
227 the Gnus versions bundled with Emacs)
230 @subsubheading Question 1.6
232 Which version of Emacs do I need?
234 @subsubheading Answer
236 Gnus 5.10 requires an Emacs version that is greater than or equal
237 to Emacs 20.7 or XEmacs 21.1.
238 The development versions of Gnus (aka No Gnus) requires Emacs 21
242 @subsubheading Question 1.7
244 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
246 @subsubheading Answer
248 You can't use the same copy of Gnus in both as the Lisp
249 files are byte-compiled to a format which is different
250 depending on which Emacs did the compilation. Get one copy
251 of Gnus for Emacs and one for XEmacs.
253 @node FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer
254 @subsection Startup / Group buffer
257 * [2.1]:: Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
258 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean and
260 * [2.2]:: Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
262 * [2.3]:: How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
263 * [2.4]:: My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
264 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse through
266 * [2.5]:: How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
267 sort the groups in a topic?
271 @subsubheading Question 2.1
273 Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
274 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean
275 and how to prevent it?
277 @subsubheading Answer
279 This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
280 wasn't properly exited and therefor couldn't write its
281 informations to disk (e.g. which messages you read), you
282 are now asked if you want to restore those informations
283 from the auto-save file.
285 To prevent this message make sure you exit Gnus
286 via @samp{q} in group buffer instead of
290 @subsubheading Question 2.2
292 Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
295 @subsubheading Answer
297 You get the message described in the q/a pair above while
298 starting Gnus, right? It's an other symptom for the same
299 problem, so read the answer above.
302 @subsubheading Question 2.3
304 How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
306 @subsubheading Answer
308 You've got to tweak the value of the variable
309 gnus-group-line-format. See the manual node "Group Line
310 Specification" for information on how to do this. An
311 example for this (guess from whose .gnus :-)):
314 (setq gnus-group-line-format "%P%M%S[%5t]%5y : %(%g%)\n")
319 @subsubheading Question 2.4
321 My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
322 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse
325 @subsubheading Answer
327 Gnus offers the topic mode, it allows you to sort your
328 groups in, well, topics, e.g. all groups dealing with
329 Linux under the topic linux, all dealing with music under
330 the topic music and all dealing with scottish music under
331 the topic scottish which is a subtopic of music.
333 To enter topic mode, just hit t while in Group buffer. Now
334 you can use @samp{T n} to create a topic
335 at point and @samp{T m} to move a group to
336 a specific topic. For more commands see the manual or the
337 menu. You might want to include the %P specifier at the
338 beginning of your gnus-group-line-format variable to have
339 the groups nicely indented.
342 @subsubheading Question 2.5
344 How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
345 sort the groups in a topic?
347 @subsubheading Answer
349 Move point over the group you want to move and
350 hit @samp{C-k}, now move point to the
351 place where you want the group to be and
354 @node FAQ 3 - Getting Messages
355 @subsection Getting Messages
358 * [3.1]:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
359 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
360 * [3.2]:: I'm working under Windows and have no idea what ~/.gnus.el
362 * [3.3]:: My news server requires authentication, how to store user
363 name and password on disk?
364 * [3.4]:: Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
365 subscribe to a group.
366 * [3.5]:: Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed
367 to post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
368 * [3.6]:: I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this
370 * [3.7]:: And how about local spool files?
371 * [3.8]:: OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read
372 my mail with Gnus, too. How to do it?
373 * [3.9]:: And what about IMAP?
374 * [3.10]:: At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can
375 I use Gnus to read my mail from it?
376 * [3.11]:: Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
381 @subsubheading Question 3.1
383 I just installed Gnus, started it via
385 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
387 @subsubheading Answer
389 You've got to tell Gnus where to fetch the news from. Read
390 the documentation for information on how to do this. As a
391 first start, put those lines in ~/.gnus.el:
394 (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.yourprovider.net"))
395 (setq user-mail-address "you@@yourprovider.net")
396 (setq user-full-name "Your Name")
401 @subsubheading Question 3.2
403 I'm working under Windows and have no idea what ~/.gnus.el means.
405 @subsubheading Answer
407 The ~/ means the home directory where Gnus and Emacs look
408 for the configuration files. However, you don't really
409 need to know what this means, it suffices that Emacs knows
410 what it means :-) You can type
411 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET }
412 (yes, with the forward slash, even on Windows), and
413 Emacs will open the right file for you. (It will most
414 likely be new, and thus empty.)
415 However, I'd discourage you from doing so, since the
416 directory Emacs chooses will most certainly not be what
417 you want, so let's do it the correct way.
418 The first thing you've got to do is to
419 create a suitable directory (no blanks in directory name
420 please) e.g. c:\myhome. Then you must set the environment
421 variable HOME to this directory. To do this under Win9x
422 or Me include the line
429 in your autoexec.bat and reboot. Under NT, 2000 and XP,
430 hit Winkey+Pause/Break to enter system options (if it
431 doesn't work, go to Control Panel -> System). There you'll
432 find the possibility to set environment variables, create
433 a new one with name HOME and value C:\myhome, a reboot is
436 Now to create ~/.gnus.el, say
437 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET C-x C-s}.
441 @subsubheading Question 3.3
443 My news server requires authentication, how to store
444 user name and password on disk?
446 @subsubheading Answer
448 Create a file ~/.authinfo which includes for each server a line like this
451 machine news.yourprovider.net login YourUserName password YourPassword
455 Make sure that the file isn't readable to others if you
456 work on a OS which is capable of doing so. (Under Unix
459 chmod 600 ~/.authinfo
466 @subsubheading Question 3.4
468 Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
469 subscribe to a group.
471 @subsubheading Answer
473 If you know the name of the group say @samp{U
474 name.of.group RET} in group buffer (use the
475 tab-completion Luke). Otherwise hit ^ in group buffer,
476 this brings you to the server buffer. Now place point (the
477 cursor) over the server which carries the group you want,
478 hit @samp{RET}, move point to the group
479 you want to subscribe to and say @samp{u}
483 @subsubheading Question 3.5
485 Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed to
486 post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
488 @subsubheading Answer
490 Some providers allow restricted anonymous access and full
491 access only after authorization. To make Gnus send authinfo
492 to those servers append
499 to the line for those servers in ~/.authinfo.
502 @subsubheading Question 3.6
504 I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this possible?
506 @subsubheading Answer
508 Of course. You can specify more sources for articles in the
509 variable gnus-secondary-select-methods. Add something like
513 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
514 '(nntp "news.yourSecondProvider.net"))
515 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
516 '(nntp "news.yourThirdProvider.net"))
521 @subsubheading Question 3.7
523 And how about local spool files?
525 @subsubheading Answer
527 No problem, this is just one more select method called
528 nnspool, so you want this:
531 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnspool ""))
535 Or this if you don't want an NNTP Server as primary news source:
538 (setq gnus-select-method '(nnspool ""))
542 Gnus will look for the spool file in /usr/spool/news, if you
543 want something different, change the line above t