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 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 (5.13) 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 Gnus is released independent from releases of Emacs and XEmacs.
176 Therefore, the version bundled with Emacs or the version in XEmacs'
177 package system might not be up to date (e.g. Gnus 5.9 bundled with Emacs
180 You can get the latest released version of Gnus from
181 @uref{http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz} or via anonymous FTP from
182 @uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
185 @subsubheading Question 1.4
187 What to do with the tarball now?
189 @subsubheading Answer
191 Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
192 @samp{./configure; make; make install} circle.
193 (under MS-Windows either get the Cygwin environment from
194 @uref{http://www.cygwin.com}
195 which allows you to do what's described above or unpack the
196 tarball with some packer (e.g. Winace from
197 @uref{http://www.winace.com})
198 and use the batch-file make.bat included in the tarball to install
199 Gnus.) If you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) install Gnus
200 system-wide, you can install it in your home directory and add the
201 following lines to your ~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs:
204 (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/gnus/lisp")
205 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
206 (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/")
207 (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/"))
211 Make sure that you don't have any Gnus related stuff
212 before this line, on MS Windows use something like
213 "C:/path/to/lisp" (yes, "/").
216 @subsubheading Question 1.5
218 I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
221 @subsubheading Answer
223 Oort Gnus was the name of the development version of
224 Gnus, which became Gnus 5.10 in autumn 2003. No Gnus is
225 the name of the current development version which will
226 once become Gnus 5.12 or Gnus 6. (If you're wondering why
227 not 5.11, the odd version numbers are normally used for
228 the Gnus versions bundled with Emacs)
231 @subsubheading Question 1.6
233 Which version of Emacs do I need?
235 @subsubheading Answer
237 Gnus 5.10 requires an Emacs version that is greater than or equal
238 to Emacs 20.7 or XEmacs 21.1.
239 The development versions of Gnus (aka No Gnus) requires Emacs 21
243 @subsubheading Question 1.7
245 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
247 @subsubheading Answer
249 You can't use the same copy of Gnus in both as the Lisp
250 files are byte-compiled to a format which is different
251 depending on which Emacs did the compilation. Get one copy
252 of Gnus for Emacs and one for XEmacs.
254 @node FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer
255 @subsection Startup / Group buffer
258 * [2.1]:: Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
259 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean and
261 * [2.2]:: Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
263 * [2.3]:: How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
264 * [2.4]:: My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
265 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse through
267 * [2.5]:: How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
268 sort the groups in a topic?
272 @subsubheading Question 2.1
274 Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
275 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean
276 and how to prevent it?
278 @subsubheading Answer
280 This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
281 wasn't properly exited and therefor couldn't write its
282 informations to disk (e.g. which messages you read), you
283 are now asked if you want to restore those informations
284 from the auto-save file.
286 To prevent this message make sure you exit Gnus
287 via @samp{q} in group buffer instead of
291 @subsubheading Question 2.2
293 Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
296 @subsubheading Answer
298 You get the message described in the q/a pair above while
299 starting Gnus, right? It's an other symptom for the same
300 problem, so read the answer above.
303 @subsubheading Question 2.3
305 How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
307 @subsubheading Answer
309 You've got to tweak the value of the variable
310 gnus-group-line-format. See the manual node "Group Line
311 Specification" for information on how to do this. An
312 example for this (guess from whose .gnus :-)):
315 (setq gnus-group-line-format "%P%M%S[%5t]%5y : %(%g%)\n")
320 @subsubheading Question 2.4
322 My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
323 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse
326 @subsubheading Answer
328 Gnus offers the topic mode, it allows you to sort your
329 groups in, well, topics, e.g. all groups dealing with
330 Linux under the topic linux, all dealing with music under
331 the topic music and all dealing with scottish music under
332 the topic scottish which is a subtopic of music.
334 To enter topic mode, just hit t while in Group buffer. Now
335 you can use @samp{T n} to create a topic
336 at point and @samp{T m} to move a group to
337 a specific topic. For more commands see the manual or the
338 menu. You might want to include the %P specifier at the
339 beginning of your gnus-group-line-format variable to have
340 the groups nicely indented.
343 @subsubheading Question 2.5
345 How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
346 sort the groups in a topic?
348 @subsubheading Answer
350 Move point over the group you want to move and
351 hit @samp{C-k}, now move point to the
352 place where you want the group to be and
355 @node FAQ 3 - Getting Messages
356 @subsection Getting Messages
359 * [3.1]:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
360 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
361 * [3.2]:: I'm working under Windows and have no idea what ~/.gnus.el
363 * [3.3]:: My news server requires authentication, how to store user
364 name and password on disk?
365 * [3.4]:: Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
366 subscribe to a group.
367 * [3.5]:: Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed
368 to post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
369 * [3.6]:: I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this
371 * [3.7]:: And how about local spool files?
372 * [3.8]:: OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read
373 my mail with Gnus, too. How to do it?
374 * [3.9]:: And what about IMAP?
375 * [3.10]:: At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can
376 I use Gnus to read my mail from it?
377 * [3.11]:: Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
382 @subsubheading Question 3.1
384 I just installed Gnus, started it via
386 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
388 @subsubheading Answer
390 You've got to tell Gnus where to fetch the news from. Read
391 the documentation for information on how to do this. As a
392 first start, put those lines in ~/.gnus.el:
395 (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.yourprovider.net"))
396 (setq user-mail-address "you@@yourprovider.net")
397 (setq user-full-name "Your Name")
402 @subsubheading Question 3.2
404 I'm working under Windows and have no idea what ~/.gnus.el means.
406 @subsubheading Answer
408 The ~/ means the home directory where Gnus and Emacs look
409 for the configuration files. However, you don't really
410 need to know what this means, it suffices that Emacs knows
411 what it means :-) You can type
412 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET }
413 (yes, with the forward slash, even on Windows), and
414 Emacs will open the right file for you. (It will most
415 likely be new, and thus empty.)
416 However, I'd discourage you from doing so, since the
417 directory Emacs chooses will most certainly not be what
418 you want, so let's do it the correct way.
419 The first thing you've got to do is to
420 create a suitable directory (no blanks in directory name
421 please) e.g. c:\myhome. Then you must set the environment
422 variable HOME to this directory. To do this under Win9x
423 or Me include the line
430 in your autoexec.bat and reboot. Under NT, 2000 and XP, hit
431 Winkey+Pause/Break to enter system options (if it doesn't work, go to
432 Control Panel -> System -> Advanced). There you'll find the possibility
433 to set environment variables. Create a new one with name HOME and value
434 C:\myhome. Rebooting is not necessary.
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 to something like this:
546 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
548 (nnspool-directory "/usr/local/myspoolddir")))
552 This sets the spool directory for this server only.
553 You might have to specify more stuff like the program used
554 to post articles, see the Gnus manual on how to do this.
557 @subsubheading Question 3.8
559 OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read my mail
560 with Gnus, too. How to do it?
562 @subsubheading Answer
564 That's a bit harder since there are many possible sources
565 for mail, many possible ways for storing mail and many
566 different ways for sending mail. The most common cases are
567 these: 1: You want to read your mail from a pop3 server and
568 send them directly to a SMTP Server 2: Some program like
569 fetchmail retrieves your mail and stores it on disk from
570 where Gnus shall read it. Outgoing mail is sent by
571 Sendmail, Postfix or some other MTA. Sometimes, you even
572 need a combination of the above cases.
574 However, the first thing to do is to tell Gnus in which way
575 it should store the mail, in Gnus terminology which back end
576 to use. Gnus supports many different back ends, the most
577 commonly used one is nnml. It stores every mail in one file
578 and is therefor quite fast. However you might prefer a one
579 file per group approach if your file system has problems with
580 many small files, the nnfolder back end is then probably the
581 choice for you. To use nnml add the following to ~/.gnus.el:
584 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnml ""))
588 As you might have guessed, if you want nnfolder, it's
591 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnfolder ""))
595 Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get it's mail from. If
596 it's a POP3 server, then you need something like this:
599 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
600 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(pop :server "pop.YourProvider.net"
602 :password "yourPassword")))
606 Make sure ~/.gnus.el isn't readable to others if you store
607 your password there. If you want to read your mail from a
608 traditional spool file on your local machine, it's
611 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
612 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(file :path "/path/to/spool/file"))
616 If it's a Maildir, with one file per message as used by
617 postfix, Qmail and (optionally) fetchmail it's
620 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
621 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(maildir :path "/path/to/Maildir/"
622 :subdirs ("cur" "new")))
626 And finally if you want to read your mail from several files
627 in one directory, for example because procmail already split your
631 (eval-after-load "mail-source"
632 '(add-to-list 'mail-sources
633 '(directory :path "/path/to/procmail-dir/"
638 Where :suffix ".prcml" tells Gnus only to use files with the
641 OK, now you only need to tell Gnus how to send mail. If you
642 want to send mail via sendmail (or whichever MTA is playing
643 the role of sendmail on your system), you don't need to do
644 anything. However, if you want to send your mail to an
645 SMTP Server you need the following in your ~/.gnus.el
648 (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
649 (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
650 (setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.yourProvider.net")
655 @subsubheading Question 3.9
659 @subsubheading Answer
661 There are two ways of using IMAP with Gnus. The first one is
662 to use IMAP like POP3, that means Gnus fetches the mail from
663 the IMAP server and stores it on disk. If you want to do
664 this (you don't really want to do this) add the following to
668 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(imap :server "mail.mycorp.com"
672 :authentication login
674 :fetchflag "\\Seen"))
678 You might have to tweak the values for stream and/or
679 authentication, see the Gnus manual node "Mail Source
680 Specifiers" for possible values.
682 If you want to use IMAP the way it's intended, you've got to
683 follow a different approach. You've got to add the nnimap
684 back end to your select method and give the information
685 about the server there.
688 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
689 '(nnimap "Give the baby a name"
690 (nnimap-address "imap.yourProvider.net")
692 (nnimap-list-pattern "archive.*")))
696 Again, you might have to specify how to authenticate to the
697 server if Gnus can't guess the correct way, see the Manual
698 Node "IMAP" for detailed information.
701 @subsubheading Question 3.10
703 At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can I use
704 Gnus to read my mail from it?
706 @subsubheading Answer
708 Offer your administrator a pair of new running shoes for
709 activating IMAP on the server and follow the instructions
713 @subsubheading Question 3.11
715 Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
718 @subsubheading Answer
720 First of all, that's not the way POP3 is intended to work,
721 if you have the possibility, you should use the IMAP
722 Protocol if you want your messages to stay on the
723 server. Nevertheless there might be situations where you
724 need the feature, but sadly Gnus itself has no predefined
725 functionality to do so.
727 However this is Gnus county so there are possibilities to
728 achieve what you want. The easiest way is to get an external
729 program which retrieves copies of the mail and stores them
730 on disk, so Gnus can read it from there. On Unix systems you
731 could use e.g. fetchmail for this, on MS Windows you can use
732 Hamster, an excellent local news and mail server.
734 The other solution would be, to replace the method Gnus
735 uses to get mail from POP3 servers by one which is capable
736 of leaving the mail on the server. If you use XEmacs, get
737 the package mail-lib, it includes an enhanced pop3.el,
738 look in the file, there's documentation on how to tell
739 Gnus to use it and not to delete the retrieved mail. For
740 GNU Emacs look for the file epop3.el which can do the same
741 (If you know the home of this file, please send me an
742 e-mail). You can also tell Gnus to use an external program
743 (e.g. fetchmail) to fetch your mail, see the info node
744 "Mail Source Specifiers" in the Gnus manual on how to do
747 @node FAQ 4 - Reading messages
748 @subsection Reading messages
751 * [4.1]:: When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to
753 * [4.2]:: How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time I
754 enter a group, even when it's read?
755 * [4.3]:: How to view the headers of a message?
756 * [4.4]:: How to view the raw unformatted message?
757 * [4.5]:: How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
758 the top of the article buffer?
759 * [4.6]:: I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
760 text part if it's available. How to do it?
761 * [4.7]:: Can I use some other browser than w3 to render my
763 * [4.8]:: Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted mails
765 * [4.9]:: Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
766 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I highlight
767 more interesting ones in some way?
768 * [4.10]:: How can I disable threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups,
769 or set other variables specific for some groups?
770 * [4.11]:: Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
772 * [4.12]:: The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
773 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in mail
774 groups. Is this a bug?
775 * [4.13]:: I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer, how
776 to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
777 * [4.14]:: I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to
779 * [4.15]:: How to split incoming mails in several groups?
783 @subsubheading Question 4.1
785 When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to view them again?
787 @subsubheading Answer
789 If you enter the group by saying
791 in group buffer with point over the group, only unread and ticked messages are loaded. Say
793 instead to load all available messages. If you want only the e.g. 300 newest say
796 Loading only unread messages can be annoying if you have threaded view enabled, say
799 (setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 'some)
803 in ~/.gnus.el to load enough old articles to prevent teared threads, replace 'some with t to load
804 all articles (Warning: Both settings enlarge the amount of data which is
805 fetched when you enter a group and slow down the process of entering a group).
807 If you already use Gnus 5.10, you can say
809 In summary buffer to load the last N messages, this feature is not available in 5.8.8
811 If you don't want all old messages, but the parent of the message you're just reading,
812 you can say @samp{^}, if you want to retrieve the whole thread
813 the message you're just reading belongs to, @samp{A T} is your friend.
816 @subsubheading Question 4.2
818 How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time I
819 enter a group, even when it's read?
821 @subsubheading Answer
823 You can tick important messages. To do this hit
824 @samp{u} while point is in summary buffer
825 over the message. When you want to remove the mark, hit
826 either @samp{d} (this deletes the tick
827 mark and set's unread mark) or @samp{M c}
828 (which deletes all marks for the message).
831 @subsubheading Question 4.3
833 How to view the headers of a message?
835 @subsubheading Answer
838 to show all headers, one more
843 @subsubheading Question 4.4
845 How to view the raw unformatted message?
847 @subsubheading Answer
851 to show the raw message
853 returns to normal view.
856 @subsubheading Question 4.5
858 How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
859 the top of the article buffer?
861 @subsubheading Answer
863 The variable gnus-visible-headers controls which headers
864 are shown, its value is a regular expression, header lines
865 which match it are shown. So if you want author, subject,
866 date, and if the header exists, Followup-To and MUA / NUA
867 say this in ~/.gnus.el:
870 (setq gnus-visible-headers
871 '("^From" "^Subject" "^Date" "^Newsgroups" "^Followup-To"
872 "^User-Agent" "^X-Newsreader" "^X-Mailer"))
877 @subsubheading Question 4.6
879 I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
880 text part if it's available. How to do it?
882 @subsubheading Answer
887 (eval-after-load "mm-decode"
889 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/html")
890 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/richtext")))
894 in ~/.gnus.el. If you don't want HTML rendered, even if there's no text alternative add
897 (setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display))
904 @subsubheading Question 4.7
906 Can I use some other browser than w3 to render my HTML-mails?
908 @subsubheading Answer
910 Only if you use Gnus 5.10 or younger. In this case you've got the
911 choice between w3, w3m, links, lynx and html2text, which
912 one is used can be specified in the variable
913 mm-text-html-renderer, so if you want links to render your
917 (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'links)
922 @subsubheading Question 4.8
924 Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted mails
927 @subsubheading Answer
929 Gnus offers you several functions to "wash" incoming mail, you can
930 find them if you browse through the menu, item
931 Article->Washing. The most interesting ones are probably "Wrap
932 long lines" (@samp{W w}), "Decode ROT13"
933 (@samp{W r}) and "Outlook Deuglify" which repairs
934 the dumb quoting used by many users of Microsoft products
935 (@samp{W Y f} gives you full deuglify.
936 See @samp{W Y C-h} or have a look at the menus for
937 other deuglifications). Outlook deuglify is only available since
941 @subsubheading Question 4.9
943 Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
944 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
945 highlight more interesting ones in some way?
947 @subsubheading Answer
949 You want Scoring. Scoring means, that you define rules
950 which assign each message an integer value. Depending on
951 the value the message is highlighted in summary buffer (if
952 it's high, say +2000) or automatically marked read (if the
953 value is low, say -800) or some other action happens.
955 There are basically three ways of setting up rules which assign
956 the scoring-value to messages. The first and easiest way is to set
957 up rules based on the article you are just reading. Say you're
958 reading a message by a guy who always writes nonsense and you want
959 to ignore his messages in the future. Hit
960 @samp{L}, to set up a rule which lowers the score.
961 Now Gnus asks you which the criteria for lowering the Score shall
962 be. Hit @samp{?} twice to see all possibilities,
963 we want @samp{a} which means the author (the from
964 header). Now Gnus wants to know which kind of matching we want.
965 Hit either @samp{e} for an exact match or
966 @samp{s} for substring-match and delete afterwards
967 everything but the name to score down all authors with the given
968 name no matter which email address is used. Now you need to tell
969 Gnus when to apply the rule and how long it should last, hit e.g.
970 @samp{p} to apply the rule now and let it last
971 forever. If you want to raise the score instead of lowering it say
972 @samp{I} instead of @samp{L}.
974 You can also set up rules by hand. To do this say @samp{V
975 f} in summary buffer. Then you are asked for the name
976 of the score file, it's name.of.group.SCORE for rules valid in
977 only one group or all.Score for rules valid in all groups. See the
978 Gnus manual for the exact syntax, basically it's one big list
979 whose elements are lists again. the first element of those lists
980 is the header to score on, then one more list with what to match,
981 which score to assign, when to expire the rule and how to do the
982 matching. If you find me very interesting, you could e.g. add the
983 following to your all.Score:
986 (("references" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 500 nil s))
987 ("message-id" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 999 nil s)))
991 This would add 999 to the score of messages written by me
992 and 500 to the score of messages which are a (possibly
993 indirect) answer to a message written by me. Of course
994 nobody with a sane mind would do this :-)
996 The third alternative is adaptive scoring. This means Gnus
997 watches you and tries to find out what you find
998 interesting and what annoying and sets up rules
999 which reflect this. Adaptive scoring can be a huge help
1000 when reading high traffic groups. If you want to activate
1001 adaptive scoring say
1004 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
1011 @subsubheading Question 4.10
1013 How can I disable threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups, or
1014 set other variables specific for some groups?
1016 @subsubheading Answer
1018 While in group buffer move point over the group and hit
1019 @samp{G c}, this opens a buffer where you
1020 can set options for the group. At the bottom of the buffer
1021 you'll find an item that allows you to set variables
1022 locally for the group. To disable threading enter
1023 gnus-show-threads as name of variable and nil as
1024 value. Hit button done at the top of the buffer when
1028 @subsubheading Question 4.11
1030 Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
1033 @subsubheading Answer
1035 Stop those "Can I ..." questions, the answer is always yes
1036 in Gnus Country :-). It's a three step process: First we
1037 make faces (specifications of how summary-line shall look
1038 like) for those postings, then we'll give them some
1039 special score and finally we'll tell Gnus to use the new
1040 faces. You can find detailed instructions on how to do it on
1041 @uref{http://my.gnus.org/node/view/224, my.gnus.org}
1044 @subsubheading Question 4.12
1046 The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
1047 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in
1048 mail groups. Is this a bug?
1050 @subsubheading Answer
1052 No, that's a matter of design of Gnus, fixing this would
1053 mean reimplementation of major parts of Gnus'
1054 back ends. Gnus thinks "highest-article-number -
1055 lowest-article-number = total-number-of-articles". This
1056 works OK for Usenet groups, but if you delete and move
1057 many messages in mail groups, this fails. To cure the
1058 symptom, enter the group via @samp{C-u RET}
1059 (this makes Gnus get all messages), then
1060 hit @samp{M P b} to mark all messages and
1061 then say @samp{B m name.of.group} to move
1062 all messages to the group they have been in before, they
1063 get new message numbers in this process and the count is
1064 right again (until you delete and move your mail to other
1068 @subsubheading Question 4.13
1070 I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer, how
1071 to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
1073 @subsubheading Answer
1075 You can control the windows configuration by calling the
1076 function gnus-add-configuration. The syntax is a bit
1077 complicated but explained very well in the manual node
1078 "Window Layout". Some popular examples:
1080 Instead 25% summary 75% article buffer 35% summary and 65%
1081 article (the 1.0 for article means "take the remaining
1085 (gnus-add-configuration
1086 '(article (vertical 1.0 (summary .35 point) (article 1.0))))
1090 A three pane layout, Group buffer on the left, summary
1091 buffer top-right, article buffer bottom-right:
1094 (gnus-add-configuration
1100 (summary 0.25 point)
1102 (gnus-add-configuration
1108 (summary 1.0 point)))))
1113 @subsubheading Question 4.14
1115 I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to tweak it?
1117 @subsubheading Answer
1119 You've got to play around with the variable
1120 gnus-summary-line-format. It's value is a string of
1121 symbols which stand for things like author, date, subject
1122 etc. A list of the available specifiers can be found in the
1123 manual node "Summary Buffer Lines" and the often forgotten
1124 node "Formatting Variables" and it's sub-nodes. There
1125 you'll find useful things like positioning the cursor and
1126 tabulators which allow you a summary in table form, but
1127 sadly hard tabulators are broken in 5.8.8.
1129 Since 5.10, Gnus offers you some very nice new specifiers,
1130 e.g. %B which draws a thread-tree and %&user-date which
1131 gives you a date where the details are dependent of the
1132 articles age. Here's an example which uses both:
1135 (setq gnus-summary-line-format ":%U%R %B %s %-60=|%4L |%-20,20f |%&user-date; \n")
1142 :O Re: [Richard Stallman] rfc2047.el | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:06
1143 :O Re: Revival of the ding-patches list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:12
1144 :R > Re: Find correct list of articles for a gro| 25 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:16
1145 :O \-> ... | 21 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:01
1146 :R > Re: Cry for help: deuglify.el - moving stuf| 28 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:34
1147 :O \-> ... | 115 |Raymond Scholz | 1:24
1148 :O \-> ... | 19 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |15:33
1149 :O Slow mailing list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:49
1150 :O Re: `@@' mark not documented | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:50
1151 :R > Re: Gnus still doesn't count messages prope| 23 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:57
1152 :O \-> ... | 18 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:35
1153 :O \-> ... | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt | 0:56
1158 @subsubheading Question 4.15
1160 How to split incoming mails in several groups?
1162 @subsubheading Answer
1164 Gnus offers two possibilities for splitting mail, the easy
1165 nnmail-split-methods and the more powerful Fancy Mail
1166 Splitting. I'll only talk about the first one, refer to
1167 the manual, node "Fancy Mail Splitting" for the latter.
1169 The value of nnmail-split-methods is a list, each element
1170 is a list which stands for a splitting rule. Each rule has
1171 the form "group where matching articles should go to",
1172 "regular expression which has to be matched", the first
1173 rule which matches wins. The last rule must always be a
1174 general rule (regular expression .*) which denotes where
1175 articles should go which don't match any other rule. If
1176 the folder doesn't exist yet, it will be created as soon
1177 as an article lands there. By default the mail will be
1178 send to all groups whose rules match. If you
1179 don't want that (you probably don't want), say
1182 (setq nnmail-crosspost nil)
1188 An example might be better than thousand words, so here's
1189 my nnmail-split-methods. Note that I send duplicates in a
1190 special group and that the default group is spam, since I
1191 filter all mails out which are from some list I'm
1192 subscribed to or which are addressed directly to me
1193 before. Those rules kill about 80% of the Spam which
1194 reaches me (Email addresses are changed to prevent spammers
1198 (setq nnmail-split-methods
1199 '(("duplicates" "^Gnus-Warning:.*duplicate")
1200 ("XEmacs-NT" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@xemacs.invalid.*")
1201 ("Gnus-Tut" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@socha.invalid.*")
1202 ("tcsh" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@mx.gw.invalid.*")
1203 ("BAfH" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@.*uni-muenchen.invalid.*")
1204 ("Hamster-src" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*hamster-sourcen@@yahoogroups.\\(de\\|com\\).*")
1205 ("Tagesschau" "^From: tagesschau <localpart@@www.tagesschau.invalid>$")
1206 ("Replies" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid.*")
1207 ("EK" "^From:.*\\(localpart@@privateprovider.invalid\\|localpart@@workplace.invalid\\).*")
1208 ("Spam" "^Content-Type:.*\\(ks_c_5601-1987\\|EUC-KR\\|big5\\|iso-2022-jp\\).*")
1209 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(This really work\\|XINGA\\|ADV:\\|XXX\\|adult\\|sex\\).*")
1210 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(\=\?ks_c_5601-1987\?\\|\=\?euc-kr\?\\|\=\?big5\?\\).*")
1211 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*BulkMailer.*\\|.*MIME::Lite.*\\|\\)")
1212 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*CyberCreek Avalanche\\|.*http\:\/\/GetResponse\.com\\)")
1213 ("Spam" "^From:.*\\(verizon\.net\\|prontomail\.com\\|money\\|ConsumerDirect\\).*")
1214 ("Spam" "^Delivered-To: GMX delivery to spamtrap@@gmx.invalid$")
1215 ("Spam" "^Received: from link2buy.com")
1216 ("Spam" "^CC: .*azzrael@@t-online.invalid")
1217 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer-Version: 1.50 BETA")
1218 ("Uni" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@uni-koblenz.invalid.*")
1219 ("Inbox" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*\\(my\ name\\|address@@one.invalid\\|adress@@two.invalid\\)")
1224 @node FAQ 5 - Composing messages
1225 @subsection Composing messages
1228 * [5.1]:: What are the basic commands I need to know for sending
1230 * [5.2]:: How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing messages?
1231 * [5.3]:: How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To,
1233 * [5.4]:: Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on
1234 the group I post too?
1235 * [5.5]:: Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly
1237 * [5.6]:: Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting
1239 * [5.7]:: Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't remember
1240 all those email addresses?
1241 * [5.8]:: Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1242 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my postings, too?
1243 * [5.9]:: Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in newsgroups.
1244 Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in newsgroups?
1245 * [5.10]:: How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1246 * [5.11]:: I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1248 * [5.12]:: People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why aren't
1249 they and how to fix it?
1253 @subsubheading Question 5.1
1255 What are the basic commands I need to know for sending mail and postings?
1257 @subsubheading Answer
1259 To start composing a new mail hit @samp{m}
1260 either in Group or Summary buffer, for a posting, it's
1261 either @samp{a} in Group buffer and
1262 filling the Newsgroups header manually
1263 or @samp{a} in the Summary buffer of the
1264 group where the posting shall be send to. Replying by mail
1266 @samp{r} if you don't want to cite the
1267 author, or import the cited text manually and
1268 @samp{R} to cite the text of the original
1269 message. For a follow up to a newsgroup, it's
1270 @samp{f} and @samp{F}
1271 (analogously to @samp{r} and
1274 Enter new headers above the line saying "--text follows
1275 this line--", enter the text below the line. When ready
1276 hit @samp{C-c C-c}, to send the message,
1277 if you want to finish it later hit @samp{C-c
1278 C-d} to save it in the drafts group, where you
1279 can start editing it again by saying @samp{D
1283 @subsubheading Question 5.2
1285 How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing messages?
1287 @subsubheading Answer
1289 Starting from No Gnus, automatic word-wrap is already enabled by
1290 default, see the variable message-fill-column.
1292 For other versions of Gnus, say
1295 (unless (boundp 'message-fill-column)
1296 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
1298 (setq fill-column 72)
1299 (turn-on-auto-fill))))
1305 You can reformat a paragraph by hitting @samp{M-q} (as usual).
1308 @subsubheading Question 5.3
1310 How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To, signature...?
1312 @subsubheading Answer
1314 There are other ways, but you should use posting styles
1315 for this. (See below why).
1316 This example should make the syntax clear:
1319 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1321 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1322 (address "me@@there.invalid")
1323 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1324 (signature-file "~/.signature")
1325 ("X-SampleHeader" "foobar")
1326 (eval (setq some-variable "Foo bar")))))
1330 The ".*" means that this settings are the default ones
1331 (see below), valid values for the first element of the
1332 following lists are signature, signature-file,
1333 organization, address, name or body. The attribute name
1334 can also be a string. In that case, this will be used as
1335 a header name, and the value will be inserted in the
1336 headers of the article; if the value is `nil', the header
1337 name will be removed. You can also say (eval (foo bar)),
1338 then the function foo will be evaluated with argument bar
1339 and the result will be thrown away.
1342 @subsubheading Question 5.4
1344 Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on the group I post too?
1346 @subsubheading Answer
1348 That's the strength of posting styles. Before, we used ".*"
1349 to set the default for all groups. You can use a regexp
1350 like "^gmane" and the following settings are only applied
1351 to postings you send to the gmane hierarchy, use
1352 ".*binaries" instead and they will be applied to postings
1353 send to groups containing the string binaries in their
1356 You can instead of specifying a regexp specify a function
1357 which is evaluated, only if it returns true, the
1358 corresponding settings take effect. Two interesting
1359 candidates for this are message-news-p which returns t if
1360 the current Group is a newsgroup and the corresponding
1363 Note that all forms that match are applied, that means in
1364 the example below, when I post to
1365 gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general, the settings under
1366 ".*" are applied and the settings under message-news-p and
1367 those under "^gmane" and those under
1368 "^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$". Because
1369 of this put general settings at the top and specific ones
1373 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1375 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1376 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1377 (signature-file "~/.signature"))
1378 ((message-news-p) ;;Usenet news?
1379 (address "mySpamTrap@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1380 (reply-to "hereRealRepliesOnlyPlease@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1381 ((message-mail-p) ;;mail?
1382 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1383 ("^gmane" ;;this is mail, too in fact
1384 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1386 ("^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$"
1387 (eval (set (make-local-variable 'message-sendmail-envelope-from)
1388 "Azzrael@@rz-online.de")))))
1393 @subsubheading Question 5.5
1395 Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly spell-checking?
1397 @subsubheading Answer
1399 You can use ispell.el to spell-check stuff in Emacs. So the
1400 first thing to do is to make sure that you've got either
1401 @uref{http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/fmg-members/geoff/ispell.html, ispell}
1402 or @uref{http://aspell.sourceforge.net/, aspell}
1403 installed and in your Path. Then you need
1404 @uref{http://www.kdstevens.com/~stevens/ispell-page.html, ispell.el}
1405 and for on-the-fly spell-checking
1406 @uref{http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/personnel/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html, flyspell.el}.
1407 Ispell.el is shipped with Emacs and available through the XEmacs package system,
1408 flyspell.el is shipped with Emacs and part of XEmacs text-modes package which is
1409 available through the package system, so there should be no need to install them
1412 Ispell.el assumes you use ispell, if you choose aspell say
1415 (setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
1419 in your Emacs configuration file.
1421 If you want your outgoing messages to be spell-checked, say
1424 (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
1428 In your ~/.gnus.el, if you prefer on-the-fly spell-checking say
1431 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (flyspell-mode 1)))
1436 @subsubheading Question 5.6
1438 Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting to?
1440 @subsubheading Answer
1442 Yes, say something like
1445 (add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook
1449 "^de\\." (gnus-group-real-name gnus-newsgroup-name))
1450 (ispell-change-dictionary "deutsch8"))
1452 (ispell-change-dictionary "english")))))
1456 in ~/.gnus.el. Change "^de\\." and "deutsch8" to something
1457 that suits your needs.
1460 @subsubheading Question 5.7
1462 Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't remember
1463 all those email addresses?
1465 @subsubheading Answer
1467 There's an very basic solution for this, mail aliases.
1468 You can store your mail addresses in a ~/.mailrc file using a simple
1472 alias al "Al <al@@english-heritage.invalid>"
1476 Then typing your alias (followed by a space or punctuation
1477 character) on a To: or Cc: line in the message buffer will
1478 cause Gnus to insert the full address for you. See the
1479 node "Mail Aliases" in Message (not Gnus) manual for
1482 However, what you really want is the Insidious Big Brother
1483 Database bbdb. Get it through the XEmacs package system or from
1484 @uref{http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/, bbdb's homepage}.
1485 Now place the following in ~/.gnus.el, to activate bbdb for Gnus:
1489 (bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)
1493 Now you probably want some general bbdb configuration,
1494 place them in ~/.emacs:
1498 ;;If you don't live in Northern America, you should disable the
1499 ;;syntax check for telephone numbers by saying
1500 (setq bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil)
1501 ;;Tell bbdb about your email address:
1502 (setq bbdb-user-mail-names
1503 (regexp-opt '("Your.Email@@here.invalid"
1504 "Your.other@@mail.there.invalid")))
1505 ;;cycling while completing email addresses
1506 (setq bbdb-complete-name-allow-cycling t)
1508 (setq bbdb-use-pop-up nil)
1512 Now you should be ready to go. Say @samp{M-x bbdb RET
1513 RET} to open a bbdb buffer showing all
1514 entries. Say @samp{c} to create a new
1515 entry, @samp{b} to search your BBDB and
1516 @samp{C-o} to add a new field to an
1517 entry. If you want to add a sender to the BBDB you can
1518 also just hit `:' on the posting in the summary buffer and
1519 you are done. When you now compose a new mail,
1520 hit @samp{TAB} to cycle through know
1524 @subsubheading Question 5.8
1526 Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1527 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my
1530 @subsubheading Answer
1532 Those images are called X-Faces. They are 48*48 pixel b/w
1533 pictures, encoded in a header line. If you want to include
1534 one in your posts, you've got to convert some image to a
1535 X-Face. So fire up some image manipulation program (say
1536 Gimp), open the image you want to include, cut out the
1537 relevant part, reduce color depth to 1 bit, resize to
1538 48*48 and save as bitmap. Now you should get the compface
1540 @uref{ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/, this site}.
1541 and create the actual X-face by saying
1544 cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon | compface > file.face
1545 cat file.face | sed 's/\\/\\\\/g;s/\"/\\\"/g;' > file.face.quoted
1549 If you can't use compface, there's an online X-face converter at
1550 @uref{http://www.dairiki.org/xface/}.
1551 If you use MS Windows, you could also use the WinFace program from
1552 @uref{http://www.xs4all.nl/~walterln/winface/}.
1553 Now you only have to tell Gnus to include the X-face in your postings by saying
1556 (setq message-default-headers
1559 (insert-file-contents "~/.xface")
1564 in ~/.gnus.el. If you use Gnus 5.10, you can simply add an entry
1567 (x-face-file "~/.xface")
1571 to gnus-posting-styles.
1574 @subsubheading Question 5.9
1576 Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
1577 newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
1580 @subsubheading Answer
1582 Put this in ~/.gnus.el:
1585 (setq gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news t)
1589 if you already use Gnus 5.10, if you still use 5.8.8 or
1590 5.9 try this instead:
1593 (eval-after-load "gnus-msg"
1594 '(unless (boundp 'gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news)
1595 (defadvice gnus-summary-reply (around reply-in-news activate)
1596 "Request confirmation when replying to news."
1598 (when (or (not (gnus-news-group-p gnus-newsgroup-name))
1599 (y-or-n-p "Really reply by mail to article author? "))
1605 @subsubheading Question 5.10
1607 How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1609 @subsubheading Answer
1611 Since 5.10 Gnus doesn't generate a sender header by
1612 default. For older Gnus' try this in ~/.gnus.el:
1615 (eval-after-load "message"
1616 '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
1621 @subsubheading Question 5.11
1623 I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1626 @subsubheading Answer
1628 You must set the variable gnus-message-archive-group to do
1629 this. You can set it to a string giving the name of the
1630 group where the copies shall go or like in the example
1631 below use a function which is evaluated and which returns
1635 (setq gnus-message-archive-group
1636 '((if (message-news-p)
1643 @subsubheading Question 5.12
1645 People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
1646 aren't they and how to fix it?
1648 @subsubheading Answer
1650 The message-ID is an unique identifier for messages you
1651 send. To make it unique, Gnus need to know which machine
1652 name to put after the "@@". If the name of the machine
1653 where Gnus is running isn't suitable (it probably isn't
1654 at most private machines) you can tell Gnus what to use
1658 (setq message-user-fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld")
1662 in ~/.gnus.el. If you use Gnus 5.9 or earlier, you can use this
1663 instead (works for newer versions a well):
1666 (eval-after-load "message"
1667 '(let ((fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld"));; <-- Edit this!
1668 (if (boundp 'message-user-fqdn)
1669 (setq message-user-fqdn fqdn)
1670 (gnus-message 1 "Redefining `message-make-fqdn'.")
1671 (defun message-make-fqdn ()
1672 "Return user's fully qualified domain name."
1677 If you have no idea what to insert for
1678 "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", you've got several
1679 choices. You can either ask your provider if he allows
1680 you to use something like
1681 yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, or you can use
1682 somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain
1683 yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which
1684 gives private users a FQDN for free.
1686 Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID
1687 for News at all (and letting the server do the job) by saying
1690 (setq message-required-news-headers
1691 (remove' Message-ID message-required-news-headers))
1695 you can also tell Gnus not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying
1698 (setq message-required-mail-headers
1699 (remove' Message-ID message-required-mail-headers))
1703 , however some mail servers don't generate proper
1704 Message-IDs, too, so test if your Mail Server behaves
1705 correctly by sending yourself a Mail and looking at the Message-ID.
1707 @node FAQ 6 - Old messages
1708 @subsection Old messages
1711 * [6.1]:: How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1712 * [6.2]:: How to archive interesting messages?
1713 * [6.3]:: How to search for a specific message?
1714 * [6.4]:: How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1715 * [6.5]:: I want that all read messages are expired (at least in some
1716 groups). How to do it?
1717 * [6.6]:: I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move them
1722 @subsubheading Question 6.1
1724 How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1726 @subsubheading Answer
1728 The easiest way is to tell your old mail program to
1729 export the messages in mbox format. Most Unix mailers
1730 are able to do this, if you come from the MS Windows
1731 world, you may find tools at
1732 @uref{http://mbx2mbox.sourceforge.net/}.
1734 Now you've got to import this mbox file into Gnus. To do
1735 this, create a nndoc group based on the mbox file by
1736 saying @samp{G f /path/file.mbox RET} in
1737 Group buffer. You now have read-only access to your
1738 mail. If you want to import the messages to your normal
1739 Gnus mail groups hierarchy, enter the nndoc group you've
1740 just created by saying @samp{C-u RET}
1741 (thus making sure all messages are retrieved), mark all
1742 messages by saying @samp{M P b} and
1743 either copy them to the desired group by saying
1744 @samp{B c name.of.group RET} or send them
1745 through nnmail-split-methods (respool them) by saying
1749 @subsubheading Question 6.2
1751 How to archive interesting messages?
1753 @subsubheading Answer
1755 If you stumble across an interesting message, say in
1756 gnu.emacs.gnus and want to archive it there are several
1757 solutions. The first and easiest is to save it to a file
1758 by saying @samp{O f}. However, wouldn't
1759 it be much more convenient to have more direct access to
1760 the archived message from Gnus? If you say yes, put this
1761 snippet by Frank Haun <pille3003@@fhaun.de> in
1765 (defun my-archive-article (&optional n)
1766 "Copies one or more article(s) to a corresponding `nnml:' group, e.g.
1767 `gnus.ding' goes to `nnml:1.gnus.ding'. And `nnml:List-gnus.ding' goes
1768 to `nnml:1.List-gnus-ding'.
1770 Use process marks or mark a region in the summary buffer to archive
1771 more then one article."
1776 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
1777 (replace-in-string gnus-newsgroup-name "^.*:" "")
1778 (replace-regexp-in-string "^.*:" "" gnus-newsgroup-name)))))
1779 (gnus-summary-copy-article n archive-name)))
1783 You can now say @samp{M-x
1784 my-archive-article} in summary buffer to
1785 archive the article under the cursor in a nnml
1786 group. (Change nnml to your preferred back end)
1788 Of course you can also make sure the cache is enabled by saying
1791 (setq gnus-use-cache t)
1795 then you only have to set either the tick or the dormant
1796 mark for articles you want to keep, setting the read
1797 mark will remove them from cache.
1800 @subsubheading Question 6.3
1802 How to search for a specific message?
1804 @subsubheading Answer
1806 There are several ways for this, too. For a posting from
1807 a Usenet group the easiest solution is probably to ask
1808 @uref{http://groups.google.com, groups.google.com},
1809 if you found the posting there, tell Google to display
1810 the raw message, look for the message-id, and say
1811 @samp{M-^ the@@message.id RET} in a
1813 Since Gnus 5.10 there's also a Gnus interface for
1814 groups.google.com which you can call with
1815 @samp{G W}) in group buffer.
1817 Another idea which works for both mail and news groups
1818 is to enter the group where the message you are
1819 searching is and use the standard Emacs search
1820 @samp{C-s}, it's smart enough to look at
1821 articles in collapsed threads, too. If you want to
1822 search bodies, too try @samp{M-s}
1823 instead. Further on there are the
1824 gnus-summary-limit-to-foo functions, which can help you,
1827 Of course you can also use grep to search through your
1828 local mail, but this is both slow for big archives and
1829 inconvenient since you are not displaying the found mail
1830 in Gnus. Here comes nnir into action. Nnir is a front end
1831 to search engines like swish-e or swish++ and
1832 others. You index your mail with one of those search
1833 engines and with the help of nnir you can search trough
1834 the indexed mail and generate a temporary group with all
1835 messages which met your search criteria. If this sound
1836 cool to you get nnir.el from
1837 @uref{ftp://ls6-ftp.cs.uni-dortmund.de/pub/src/emacs/}
1838 or @uref{ftp://ftp.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de/pub/src/emacs/}.
1839 Instructions on how to use it are at the top of the file.
1842 @subsubheading Question 6.4
1844 How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1846 @subsubheading Answer
1848 You can of course just mark the mail you don't need
1849 anymore by saying @samp{#} with point
1850 over the mail and then say @samp{B DEL}
1851 to get rid of them forever. You could also instead of
1852 actually deleting them, send them to a junk-group by
1853 saying @samp{B m nnml:trash-bin} which
1854 you clear from time to time, but both are not the intended
1857 In Gnus, we let mail expire like news expires on a news
1858 server. That means you tell Gnus the message is
1859 expirable (you tell Gnus "I don't need this mail
1860 anymore") by saying @samp{E} with point
1861 over the mail in summary buffer. Now when you leave the
1862 group, Gnus looks at all messages which you marked as
1863 expirable before and if they are old enough (default is
1864 older than a week) they are deleted.
1867 @subsubheading Question 6.5
1869 I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
1870 some groups). How to do it?
1872 @subsubheading Answer
1874 If you want all read messages to be expired (e.g. in
1875 mailing lists where there's an online archive), you've
1876 got two choices: auto-expire and
1877 total-expire. Auto-expire means, that every article
1878 which has no marks set and is selected for reading is
1879 marked as expirable, Gnus hits @samp{E}
1880 for you every time you read a message. Total-expire
1881 follows a slightly different approach, here all article
1882 where the read mark is set are expirable.
1884 To activate auto-expire, include auto-expire in the
1885 Group parameters for the group. (Hit @samp{G
1886 c} in summary buffer with point over the
1887 group to change group parameters). For total-expire add
1888 total-expire to the group-parameters.
1890 Which method you choose is merely a matter of taste:
1891 Auto-expire is faster, but it doesn't play together with
1892 Adaptive Scoring, so if you want to use this feature,
1893 you should use total-expire.
1895 If you want a message to be excluded from expiration in
1896 a group where total or auto expire is active, set either
1897 tick (hit @samp{u}) or dormant mark (hit
1898 @samp{u}), when you use auto-expire, you
1899 can also set the read mark (hit
1903 @subsubheading Question 6.6
1905 I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move them
1908 @subsubheading Answer
1910 Say something like this in ~/.gnus.el:
1913 (setq nnmail-expiry-target "nnml:expired")
1917 (If you want to change the value of nnmail-expiry-target
1918 on a per group basis see the question "How can I disable
1919 threading in some (e.g. mail-) groups, or set other
1920 variables specific for some groups?")
1922 @node FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment
1923 @subsection Gnus in a dial-up environment
1926 * [7.1]:: I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can I
1927 minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1928 * [7.2]:: So what was this thing about the Agent?
1929 * [7.3]:: I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do it?
1930 * [7.4]:: How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings while
1935 @subsubheading Question 7.1
1937 I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can
1938 I minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1940 @subsubheading Answer
1942 You've got basically two options: Either you use the
1943 Gnus Agent (see below) for this, or you can install
1944 programs which fetch your news and mail to your local
1945 disk and Gnus reads the stuff from your local
1948 If you want to follow the second approach, you need a
1949 program which fetches news and offers them to Gnus, a
1950 program which does the same for mail and a program which
1951 receives the mail you write from Gnus and sends them
1954 Let's talk about Unix systems first: For the news part,
1955 the easiest solution is a small nntp server like
1956 @uref{http://www.leafnode.org/, Leafnode} or
1957 @uref{http://infa.abo.fi/~patrik/sn/, sn},
1958 of course you can also install a full featured news
1960 @uref{http://www.isc.org/products/INN/, inn}.
1961 Then you want to fetch your Mail, popular choices
1962 are @uref{http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/, fetchmail}
1963 and @uref{http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/, getmail}.
1964 You should tell those to write the mail to your disk and
1965 Gnus to read it from there. Last but not least the mail
1966 sending part: This can be done with every MTA like
1967 @uref{http://www.sendmail.org/, sendmail},
1968 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, postfix},
1969 @uref{http://www.exim.org/, exim} or
1970 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, qmail}.
1972 On windows boxes I'd vote for
1973 @uref{http://www.tglsoft.de/, Hamster},
1974 it's a small freeware, open-source program which fetches
1975 your mail and news from remote servers and offers them
1976 to Gnus (or any other mail and/or news reader) via nntp
1977 respectively POP3 or IMAP. It also includes a smtp
1978 server for receiving mails from Gnus.
1981 @subsubheading Question 7.2
1983 So what was this thing about the Agent?
1985 @subsubheading Answer
1987 The Gnus agent is part of Gnus, it allows you to fetch
1988 mail and news and store them on disk for reading them
1989 later when you're offline. It kind of mimics offline
1990 newsreaders like e.g. Forte Agent. If you want to use
1991 the Agent place the following in ~/.gnus.el if you are
1992 still using 5.8.8 or 5.9 (it's the default since 5.10):
1999 Now you've got to select the servers whose groups can be
2000 stored locally. To do this, open the server buffer
2001 (that is press @samp{^} while in the
2002 group buffer). Now select a server by moving point to
2003 the line naming that server. Finally, agentize the
2004 server by typing @samp{J a}. If you
2005 make a mistake, or change your mind, you can undo this
2006 action by typing @samp{J r}. When
2007 you're done, type 'q' to return to the group buffer.
2008 Now the next time you enter a group on a agentized
2009 server, the headers will be stored on disk and read from
2010 there the next time you enter the group.
2013 @subsubheading Question 7.3
2015 I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do it?
2017 @subsubheading Answer
2019 You can tell the agent to automatically fetch the bodies
2020 of articles which fulfill certain predicates, this is
2021 done in a special buffer which can be reached by
2022 saying @samp{J c} in group
2023 buffer. Please refer to the documentation for
2024 information which predicates are possible and how
2027 Further on you can tell the agent manually which
2028 articles to store on disk. There are two ways to do
2029 this: Number one: In the summary buffer, process mark a
2030 set of articles that shall be stored in the agent by
2031 saying @samp{#} with point over the
2032 article and then type @samp{J s}. The
2033 other possibility is to set, again in the summary
2034 buffer, downloadable (%) marks for the articles you
2035 want by typing @samp{@@} with point over
2036 the article and then typing @samp{J u}.
2037 What's the difference? Well, process marks are erased as
2038 soon as you exit the summary buffer while downloadable
2039 marks are permanent. You can actually set downloadable
2040 marks in several groups then use fetch session ('J s' in
2041 the GROUP buffer) to fetch all of those articles. The
2042 only downside is that fetch session also fetches all of
2043 the headers for every selected group on an agentized
2044 server. Depending on the volume of headers, the initial
2045 fetch session could take hours.
2048 @subsubheading Question 7.4
2050 How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
2053 @subsubheading Answer
2055 All you've got to do is to tell Gnus when you are online
2056 (plugged) and when you are offline (unplugged), the rest
2057 works automatically. You can toggle plugged/unplugged
2058 state by saying @samp{J j} in group
2059 buffer. To start Gnus unplugged say @samp{M-x
2060 gnus-unplugged} instead of
2061 @samp{M-x gnus}. Note that for this to
2062 work, the agent must be active.
2064 @node FAQ 8 - Getting help
2065 @subsection Getting help
2068 * [8.1]:: How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2069 * [8.2]:: I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X (e.g.
2070 attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2071 * [8.3]:: Which websites should I know?
2072 * [8.4]:: Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2073 * [8.5]:: Where to report bugs?
2074 * [8.6]:: I need real-time help, where to find it?
2078 @subsubheading Question 8.1
2080 How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2082 @subsubheading Answer
2084 The first stop should be the Gnus manual (Say
2085 @samp{C-h i d m Gnus RET} to start the
2086 Gnus manual, then walk through the menus or do a
2087 full-text search with @samp{s}). Then
2088 there are the general Emacs help commands starting with
2089 C-h, type @samp{C-h ? ?} to get a list
2090 of all available help commands and their meaning. Finally
2091 @samp{M-x apropos-command} lets you
2092 search through all available functions and @samp{M-x
2093 apropos} searches the bound variables.
2096 @subsubheading Question 8.2
2098 I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X
2099 (e.g. attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2101 @subsubheading Answer
2103 There's not only the Gnus manual but also the manuals
2104 for message, emacs-mime, sieve and pgg. Those packages
2105 are distributed with Gnus and used by Gnus but aren't
2106 really part of core Gnus, so they are documented in
2107 different info files, you should have a look in those
2111 @subsubheading Question 8.3
2113 Which websites should I know?
2115 @subsubheading Answer
2117 The two most important ones are the
2118 @uref{http://www.gnus.org, official Gnus website}.
2119 and it's sister site
2120 @uref{http://my.gnus.org, my.gnus.org (MGO)},
2121 hosting an archive of lisp snippets, howtos, a (not
2122 really finished) tutorial and this FAQ.
2124 Tell me about other sites which are interesting.
2127 @subsubheading Question 8.4
2129 Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2131 @subsubheading Answer
2133 There's the newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus
2135 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.user,
2136 gmane.emacs.gnus.user})
2137 which deals with general Gnus questions.
2138 The ding mailing list (ding@@gnus.org) deals with development of
2139 Gnus. You can read the ding list via NNTP, too under the name
2140 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general,
2141 gmane.emacs.gnus.general} from news.gmane.org.
2143 If you want to stay in the big8,
2144 news.software.newssreaders is also read by some Gnus
2145 users (but chances for qualified help are much better in
2146 the above groups) and if you speak German, there's
2147 de.comm.software.gnus.
2150 @subsubheading Question 8.5
2152 Where to report bugs?
2154 @subsubheading Answer
2156 Say @samp{M-x gnus-bug}, this will start
2158 @email{bugs@@gnus.org, gnus bug mailing list}
2159 including information about your environment which make
2160 it easier to help you.
2163 @subsubheading Question 8.6
2165 I need real-time help, where to find it?
2167 @subsubheading Answer
2169 Point your IRC client to irc.freenode.net, channel #gnus.
2171 @node FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus
2172 @subsection Tuning Gnus
2175 * [9.1]:: Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2176 * [9.2]:: How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2177 * [9.3]:: Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2181 @subsubheading Question 9.1
2183 Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2185 @subsubheading Answer
2187 The reason for this could be the way Gnus reads it's
2188 active file, see the node "The Active File" in the Gnus
2189 manual for things you might try to speed the process up.
2190 An other idea would be to byte compile your ~/.gnus.el (say
2191 @samp{M-x byte-compile-file RET ~/.gnus.el
2192 RET} to do it). Finally, if you have require
2193 statements in your .gnus, you could replace them with
2194 eval-after-load, which loads the stuff not at startup
2195 time, but when it's needed. Say you've got this in your
2200 (add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled))
2204 then as soon as you start Gnus, message.el is loaded. If
2208 (eval-after-load "message"
2209 '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
2213 it's loaded when it's needed.
2216 @subsubheading Question 9.2
2218 How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2220 @subsubheading Answer
2222 A speed killer is setting the variable
2223 gnus-fetch-old-headers to anything different from nil,
2224 so don't do this if speed is an issue. To speed up
2225 building of summary say
2232 at the bottom of your ~/.gnus.el, this will make gnus
2233 byte-compile things like
2234 gnus-summary-line-format.
2235 then you could increase the value of gc-cons-threshold
2236 by saying something like
2239 (setq gc-cons-threshold 3500000)
2243 in ~/.emacs. If you don't care about width of CJK
2244 characters or use Gnus 5.10 or younger together with a
2245 recent GNU Emacs, you should say
2248 (setq gnus-use-correct-string-widths nil)
2252 in ~/.gnus.el (thanks to Jesper harder for the last
2253 two suggestions). Finally if you are still using 5.8.8
2254 or 5.9 and experience speed problems with summary
2255 buffer generation, you definitely should update to
2256 5.10 since there quite some work on improving it has
2260 @subsubheading Question 9.3
2262 Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2264 @subsubheading Answer
2266 The reason could be that you told Gnus to archive the
2267 messages you wrote by setting
2268 gnus-message-archive-group. Try to use a nnml group
2269 instead of an archive group, this should bring you back
2272 @node FAQ - Glossary
2273 @subsection Glossary
2278 When the term ~/.gnus.el is used it just means your Gnus
2279 configuration file. You might as well call it ~/.gnus or
2280 specify another name.
2283 In Gnus terminology a back end is a virtual server, a layer
2284 between core Gnus and the real NNTP-, POP3-, IMAP- or
2285 whatever-server which offers Gnus a standardized interface
2286 to functions like "get message", "get Headers" etc.
2289 When the term Emacs is used in this FAQ, it means either GNU
2293 In this FAQ message means a either a mail or a posting to a
2294 Usenet Newsgroup or to some other fancy back end, no matter
2295 of which kind it is.
2298 MUA is an acronym for Mail User Agent, it's the program you
2299 use to read and write e-mails.
2302 NUA is an acronym for News User Agent, it's the program you
2303 use to read and write Usenet news.
2308 arch-tag: 64dc5692-edb4-4848-a965-7aa0181acbb8