1 @c \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
2 @c Uncomment 1st line before texing this file alone.
4 @c Copyright (C) 1995, 2001-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6 @c @setfilename gnus-faq.info
7 @c @settitle Frequently Asked Questions
8 @c @include docstyle.texi
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.
41 Please submit features and suggestions to the
42 @email{ding@@gnus.org, ding list}.
52 2008-06-15: Adjust for message-fill-column. Add x-face-file.
53 Clarify difference between ding and gnu.emacs.gnus. Remove
54 reference to discontinued service.
57 2006-04-15: Added tip on how to delete sent buffer on exit.
60 @node FAQ - Introduction
61 @subsection Introduction
63 This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
65 Gnus is a Usenet Newsreader and Electronic Mail User Agent implemented
66 as a part of Emacs. It's been around in some form for almost a decade
67 now, and has been distributed as a standard part of Emacs for much of
68 that time. Gnus 5 is the latest (and greatest) incarnation. The
69 original version was called GNUS, and was written by Masanobu UMEDA@.
70 When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and
71 decided to rewrite Gnus.
73 Its biggest strength is the fact that it is extremely
74 customizable. It is somewhat intimidating at first glance, but
75 most of the complexity can be ignored until you're ready to take
76 advantage of it. If you receive a reasonable volume of e-mail
77 (you're on various mailing lists), or you would like to read
78 high-volume mailing lists but cannot keep up with them, or read
79 high volume newsgroups or are just bored, then Gnus is what you
82 This FAQ was maintained by Justin Sheehy until March 2002. He
83 would like to thank Steve Baur and Per Abrahamsen for doing a wonderful
84 job with this FAQ before him. We would like to do the same: thanks,
87 This version is much nicer than the unofficial hypertext
88 versions that are archived at Utrecht, Oxford, Smart Pages, Ohio
89 State, and other FAQ archives. See the resources question below
90 if you want information on obtaining it in another format.
92 The information contained here was compiled with the assistance
93 of the Gnus development mailing list, and any errors or
94 misprints are the Gnus team's fault, sorry.
96 @node FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ
97 @subsection Installation FAQ
100 * FAQ 1-1:: What is the latest version of Gnus?
101 * FAQ 1-2:: What's new in 5.10?
102 * FAQ 1-3:: Where and how to get Gnus?
103 * FAQ 1-4:: What to do with the tarball now?
104 * FAQ 1-5:: I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
106 * FAQ 1-6:: Which version of Emacs do I need?
107 * FAQ 1-7:: How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
111 @subsubheading Question 1.1
113 What is the latest version of Gnus?
115 @subsubheading Answer
117 Jingle please: Gnus 5.10 is released, get it while it's
118 hot! As well as the step in version number is rather
119 small, Gnus 5.10 has tons of new features which you
120 shouldn't miss. The current release (5.13) should be at
121 least as stable as the latest release of the 5.8 series.
124 @subsubheading Question 1.2
128 @subsubheading Answer
130 First of all, you should have a look into the file
131 GNUS-NEWS in the toplevel directory of the Gnus tarball,
132 there the most important changes are listed. Here's a
133 short list of the changes I find especially
134 important/interesting:
139 Major rewrite of the Gnus agent, Gnus agent is now
143 Many new article washing functions for dealing with
144 ugly formatted articles.
150 Message-utils now included in Gnus.
153 New format specifiers for summary lines, e.g., %B for
154 a complex trn-style thread tree.
158 @subsubheading Question 1.3
160 Where and how to get Gnus?
162 @subsubheading Answer
164 Gnus is released independent from releases of Emacs and XEmacs.
165 Therefore, the version bundled with Emacs or the version in XEmacs's
166 package system might not be up to date (e.g., Gnus 5.9 bundled with Emacs
168 You can get the latest released version of Gnus from
169 @uref{http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz}
170 or via anonymous FTP from
171 @uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
174 @subsubheading Question 1.4
176 What to do with the tarball now?
178 @subsubheading Answer
180 Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
181 @samp{./configure; make; make install} circle.
182 (under MS-Windows either get the Cygwin environment from
183 @uref{http://www.cygwin.com}
184 which allows you to do what's described above or unpack the
185 tarball with some packer (e.g., Winace from
186 @uref{http://www.winace.com})
187 and use the batch-file make.bat included in the tarball to install
188 Gnus.) If you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) install Gnus
189 system-wide, you can install it in your home directory and add the
190 following lines to your ~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs:
193 (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/gnus/lisp")
194 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
195 (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/")
196 (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/"))
200 Make sure that you don't have any Gnus related stuff
201 before this line, on MS Windows use something like
202 "C:/path/to/lisp" (yes, "/").
205 @subsubheading Question 1.5
207 I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
210 @subsubheading Answer
212 Oort Gnus was the name of the development version of
213 Gnus, which became Gnus 5.10 in autumn 2003. No Gnus is
214 the name of the current development version which will
215 once become Gnus 5.12 or Gnus 6. (If you're wondering why
216 not 5.11, the odd version numbers are normally used for
217 the Gnus versions bundled with Emacs)
220 @subsubheading Question 1.6
222 Which version of Emacs do I need?
224 @subsubheading Answer
226 Gnus 5.13 requires an Emacs version that is greater than or equal
227 to Emacs 23.1 or XEmacs 21.1, although there are some features that
228 only work on Emacs 24.
231 @subsubheading Question 1.7
233 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
235 @subsubheading Answer
237 You can't use the same copy of Gnus in both as the Lisp
238 files are byte-compiled to a format which is different
239 depending on which Emacs did the compilation. Get one copy
240 of Gnus for Emacs and one for XEmacs.
242 @node FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer
243 @subsection Startup / Group buffer
246 * FAQ 2-1:: Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
247 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean and
249 * FAQ 2-2:: Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
251 * FAQ 2-3:: How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
252 * FAQ 2-4:: My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
253 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse through
255 * FAQ 2-5:: How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
256 sort the groups in a topic?
260 @subsubheading Question 2.1
262 Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
263 file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean
264 and how to prevent it?
266 @subsubheading Answer
268 This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
269 wasn't properly exited and therefore couldn't write its
270 information to disk (e.g., which messages you read), you
271 are now asked if you want to restore that information
272 from the auto-save file.
274 To prevent this message make sure you exit Gnus
275 via @samp{q} in group buffer instead of
279 @subsubheading Question 2.2
281 Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
284 @subsubheading Answer
286 You get the message described in the q/a pair above while
287 starting Gnus, right? It's an other symptom for the same
288 problem, so read the answer above.
291 @subsubheading Question 2.3
293 How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
295 @subsubheading Answer
297 You've got to tweak the value of the variable
298 gnus-group-line-format. See the manual node "Group Line
299 Specification" for information on how to do this. An
300 example for this (guess from whose .gnus :-)):
303 (setq gnus-group-line-format "%P%M%S[%5t]%5y : %(%g%)\n")
308 @subsubheading Question 2.4
310 My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
311 sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse
314 @subsubheading Answer
316 Gnus offers the topic mode, it allows you to sort your
317 groups in, well, topics, e.g., all groups dealing with
318 Linux under the topic linux, all dealing with music under
319 the topic music and all dealing with scottish music under
320 the topic scottish which is a subtopic of music.
322 To enter topic mode, just hit t while in Group buffer. Now
323 you can use @samp{T n} to create a topic
324 at point and @samp{T m} to move a group to
325 a specific topic. For more commands see the manual or the
326 menu. You might want to include the %P specifier at the
327 beginning of your gnus-group-line-format variable to have
328 the groups nicely indented.
331 @subsubheading Question 2.5
333 How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
334 sort the groups in a topic?
336 @subsubheading Answer
338 Move point over the group you want to move and
339 hit @samp{C-k}, now move point to the
340 place where you want the group to be and
343 @node FAQ 3 - Getting Messages
344 @subsection Getting Messages
347 * FAQ 3-1:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
348 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
349 * FAQ 3-2:: I'm working under Windows and have no idea what
351 * FAQ 3-3:: My news server requires authentication, how to store
352 user name and password on disk?
353 * FAQ 3-4:: Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
354 subscribe to a group.
355 * FAQ 3-5:: Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed
356 to post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
357 * FAQ 3-6:: I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this
359 * FAQ 3-7:: And how about local spool files?
360 * FAQ 3-8:: OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to
361 read my mail with Gnus, too. How to do it?
362 * FAQ 3-9:: And what about IMAP?
363 * FAQ 3-10:: At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers,
364 can I use Gnus to read my mail from it?
365 * FAQ 3-11:: Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
370 @subsubheading Question 3.1
372 I just installed Gnus, started it via
374 but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
376 @subsubheading Answer
378 You've got to tell Gnus where to fetch the news from. Read
379 the documentation for information on how to do this. As a
380 first start, put those lines in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
383 (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.yourprovider.net"))
384 (setq user-mail-address "you@@yourprovider.net")
385 (setq user-full-name "Your Name")
390 @subsubheading Question 3.2
392 I'm working under Windows and have no idea what @file{~/.gnus.el} means.
394 @subsubheading Answer
396 The ~/ means the home directory where Gnus and Emacs look
397 for the configuration files. However, you don't really
398 need to know what this means, it suffices that Emacs knows
399 what it means :-) You can type
400 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET }
401 (yes, with the forward slash, even on Windows), and
402 Emacs will open the right file for you. (It will most
403 likely be new, and thus empty.)
404 However, I'd discourage you from doing so, since the
405 directory Emacs chooses will most certainly not be what
406 you want, so let's do it the correct way.
407 The first thing you've got to do is to
408 create a suitable directory (no blanks in names
409 please), e.g., c:\myhome. Then you must set the environment
410 variable HOME to this directory. To do this under Windows 9x
411 or Me include the line
418 in your autoexec.bat and reboot. Under NT, 2000 and XP, hit
419 Winkey+Pause/Break to enter system options (if it doesn't work, go
420 to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced). There you'll find the
421 possibility to set environment variables. Create a new one with
422 name HOME and value C:\myhome. Rebooting is not necessary.
424 Now to create @file{~/.gnus.el}, say
425 @samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET C-x C-s}.
429 @subsubheading Question 3.3
431 My news server requires authentication, how to store
432 user name and password on disk?
434 @subsubheading Answer
436 Create a file ~/.authinfo which includes for each server a line like this
439 machine news.yourprovider.net login YourUserName password YourPassword
443 Make sure that the file isn't readable to others if you
444 work on a OS which is capable of doing so. (Under Unix
447 chmod 600 ~/.authinfo
454 @subsubheading Question 3.4
456 Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
457 subscribe to a group.
459 @subsubheading Answer
461 If you know the name of the group say @samp{U
462 name.of.group RET} in group buffer (use the
463 tab-completion Luke). Otherwise hit ^ in group buffer,
464 this brings you to the server buffer. Now place point (the
465 cursor) over the server which carries the group you want,
466 hit @samp{RET}, move point to the group
467 you want to subscribe to and say @samp{u}
471 @subsubheading Question 3.5
473 Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed to
474 post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
476 @subsubheading Answer
478 Some providers allow restricted anonymous access and full
479 access only after authorization. To make Gnus send authinfo
480 to those servers append
487 to the line for those servers in ~/.authinfo.
490 @subsubheading Question 3.6
492 I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this possible?
494 @subsubheading Answer
496 Of course. You can specify more sources for articles in the
497 variable gnus-secondary-select-methods. Add something like
498 this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
501 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
502 '(nntp "news.yourSecondProvider.net"))
503 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
504 '(nntp "news.yourThirdProvider.net"))
509 @subsubheading Question 3.7
511 And how about local spool files?
513 @subsubheading Answer
515 No problem, this is just one more select method called
516 nnspool, so you want this:
519 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnspool ""))
523 Or this if you don't want an NNTP Server as primary news source:
526 (setq gnus-select-method '(nnspool ""))
530 Gnus will look for the spool file in /usr/spool/news, if you
531 want something different, change the line above to something like this:
534 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
536 (nnspool-directory "/usr/local/myspoolddir")))
540 This sets the spool directory for this server only.
541 You might have to specify more stuff like the program used
542 to post articles, see the Gnus manual on how to do this.
545 @subsubheading Question 3.8
547 OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read my mail
548 with Gnus, too. How to do it?
550 @subsubheading Answer
552 That's a bit harder since there are many possible sources
553 for mail, many possible ways for storing mail and many
554 different ways for sending mail. The most common cases are
555 these: 1: You want to read your mail from a pop3 server and
556 send them directly to a SMTP Server 2: Some program like
557 fetchmail retrieves your mail and stores it on disk from
558 where Gnus shall read it. Outgoing mail is sent by
559 Sendmail, Postfix or some other MTA@. Sometimes, you even
560 need a combination of the above cases.
562 However, the first thing to do is to tell Gnus in which way
563 it should store the mail, in Gnus terminology which back end
564 to use. Gnus supports many different back ends, the most
565 commonly used one is nnml. It stores every mail in one file
566 and is therefore quite fast. However you might prefer a one
567 file per group approach if your file system has problems with
568 many small files, the nnfolder back end is then probably the
569 choice for you. To use nnml add the following to @file{~/.gnus.el}:
572 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnml ""))
576 As you might have guessed, if you want nnfolder, it's
579 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnfolder ""))
583 Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get its mail from. If
584 it's a POP3 server, then you need something like this:
587 (with-eval-after-load "mail-source"
588 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(pop :server "pop.YourProvider.net"
590 :password "yourPassword")))
594 Make sure @file{~/.gnus.el} isn't readable to others if you store
595 your password there. If you want to read your mail from a
596 traditional spool file on your local machine, it's
599 (with-eval-after-load "mail-source"
600 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(file :path "/path/to/spool/file"))
604 If it's a Maildir, with one file per message as used by
605 postfix, Qmail and (optionally) fetchmail it's
608 (with-eval-after-load "mail-source"
609 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(maildir :path "/path/to/Maildir/"
610 :subdirs ("cur" "new")))
614 And finally if you want to read your mail from several files
615 in one directory, for example because procmail already split your
619 (with-eval-after-load "mail-source"
620 (add-to-list 'mail-sources
621 '(directory :path "/path/to/procmail-dir/"
626 Where :suffix ".prcml" tells Gnus only to use files with the
629 OK, now you only need to tell Gnus how to send mail. If you
630 want to send mail via sendmail (or whichever MTA is playing
631 the role of sendmail on your system), you don't need to do
632 anything. However, if you want to send your mail to an
633 SMTP Server you need the following in your @file{~/.gnus.el}
636 (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
637 (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
638 (setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.yourProvider.net")
643 @subsubheading Question 3.9
647 @subsubheading Answer
649 There are two ways of using IMAP with Gnus. The first one is
650 to use IMAP like POP3, that means Gnus fetches the mail from
651 the IMAP server and stores it on disk. If you want to do
652 this (you don't really want to do this) add the following to
656 (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(imap :server "mail.mycorp.com"
660 :authentication login
662 :fetchflag "\\Seen"))
666 You might have to tweak the values for stream and/or
667 authentication, see the Gnus manual node "Mail Source
668 Specifiers" for possible values.
670 If you want to use IMAP the way it's intended, you've got to
671 follow a different approach. You've got to add the nnimap
672 back end to your select method and give the information
673 about the server there.
676 (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
677 '(nnimap "Give the baby a name"
678 (nnimap-address "imap.yourProvider.net")
680 (nnimap-list-pattern "archive.*")))
684 Again, you might have to specify how to authenticate to the
685 server if Gnus can't guess the correct way, see the Manual
686 Node "IMAP" for detailed information.
689 @subsubheading Question 3.10
691 At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can I use
692 Gnus to read my mail from it?
694 @subsubheading Answer
696 Offer your administrator a pair of new running shoes for
697 activating IMAP on the server and follow the instructions
701 @subsubheading Question 3.11
703 Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
706 @subsubheading Answer
708 Yes, if the POP3 server supports the UIDL control (maybe almost servers
709 do it nowadays). To do that, add a @code{:leave VALUE} pair to each
710 POP3 mail source. See @pxref{Mail Source Specifiers} for VALUE.
712 @node FAQ 4 - Reading messages
713 @subsection Reading messages
716 * FAQ 4-1:: When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to
718 * FAQ 4-2:: How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time
719 I enter a group, even when it's read?
720 * FAQ 4-3:: How to view the headers of a message?
721 * FAQ 4-4:: How to view the raw unformatted message?
722 * FAQ 4-5:: How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
723 the top of the article buffer?
724 * FAQ 4-6:: I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
725 text part if it's available. How to do it?
726 * FAQ 4-7:: Can I use some other browser than shr to render my
728 * FAQ 4-8:: Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted
730 * FAQ 4-9:: Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
731 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
732 highlight more interesting ones in some way?
733 * FAQ 4-10:: How can I disable threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups,
734 or set other variables specific for some groups?
735 * FAQ 4-11:: Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
737 * FAQ 4-12:: The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
738 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in mail
739 groups. Is this a bug?
740 * FAQ 4-13:: I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer,
741 how to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
742 * FAQ 4-14:: I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to
744 * FAQ 4-15:: How to split incoming mails in several groups?
745 * FAQ 4-16:: How can I ensure more contrast when viewing HTML mail?
749 @subsubheading Question 4.1
751 When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to view them again?
753 @subsubheading Answer
755 If you enter the group by saying
757 in group buffer with point over the group, only unread and ticked messages are loaded. Say
759 instead to load all available messages. If you want only the 300 newest say
762 Loading only unread messages can be annoying if you have threaded view enabled, say
765 (setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 'some)
769 in @file{~/.gnus.el} to load enough old articles to prevent teared threads, replace 'some with @code{t} to load
770 all articles (Warning: Both settings enlarge the amount of data which is
771 fetched when you enter a group and slow down the process of entering a group).
773 If you already use Gnus 5.10, you can say
775 In summary buffer to load the last N messages, this feature is not available in 5.8.8
777 If you don't want all old messages, but the parent of the message you're just reading,
778 you can say @samp{^}, if you want to retrieve the whole thread
779 the message you're just reading belongs to, @samp{A T} is your friend.
782 @subsubheading Question 4.2
784 How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time I
785 enter a group, even when it's read?
787 @subsubheading Answer
789 You can tick important messages. To do this hit
790 @samp{u} while point is in summary buffer
791 over the message. When you want to remove the mark, hit
792 either @samp{d} (this deletes the tick
793 mark and set's unread mark) or @samp{M c}
794 (which deletes all marks for the message).
797 @subsubheading Question 4.3
799 How to view the headers of a message?
801 @subsubheading Answer
804 to show all headers, one more
809 @subsubheading Question 4.4
811 How to view the raw unformatted message?
813 @subsubheading Answer
817 to show the raw message
819 returns to normal view.
822 @subsubheading Question 4.5
824 How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
825 the top of the article buffer?
827 @subsubheading Answer
829 The variable gnus-visible-headers controls which headers
830 are shown, its value is a regular expression, header lines
831 which match it are shown. So if you want author, subject,
832 date, and if the header exists, Followup-To and MUA / NUA
833 say this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
836 (setq gnus-visible-headers
837 '("^From" "^Subject" "^Date" "^Newsgroups" "^Followup-To"
838 "^User-Agent" "^X-Newsreader" "^X-Mailer"))
843 @subsubheading Question 4.6
845 I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
846 text part if it's available. How to do it?
848 @subsubheading Answer
853 (with-eval-after-load "mm-decode"
854 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/html")
855 (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/richtext"))
859 in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you don't want HTML rendered, even if there's no text alternative add
862 (setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display))
869 @subsubheading Question 4.7
871 Can I use some other browser than w3m to render my HTML-mails?
873 @subsubheading Answer
875 Only if you use Gnus 5.10 or younger. In this case you've got the
876 choice between shr, w3m, links, lynx and html2text, which
877 one is used can be specified in the variable
878 mm-text-html-renderer, so if you want links to render your
882 (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'links)
887 @subsubheading Question 4.8
889 Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted mails
892 @subsubheading Answer
894 Gnus offers you several functions to ``wash'' incoming mail, you can
895 find them if you browse through the menu, item
896 Article->Washing. The most interesting ones are probably ``Wrap
897 long lines'' (@samp{W w}), ``Decode ROT13''
898 (@samp{W r}) and ``Outlook Deuglify'' which repairs
899 the dumb quoting used by many users of Microsoft products
900 (@samp{W Y f} gives you full deuglify.
901 See @samp{W Y C-h} or have a look at the menus for
902 other deuglifications). Outlook deuglify is only available since
906 @subsubheading Question 4.9
908 Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
909 authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
910 highlight more interesting ones in some way?
912 @subsubheading Answer
914 You want Scoring. Scoring means, that you define rules
915 which assign each message an integer value. Depending on
916 the value the message is highlighted in summary buffer (if
917 it's high, say +2000) or automatically marked read (if the
918 value is low, say -800) or some other action happens.
920 There are basically three ways of setting up rules which assign
921 the scoring-value to messages. The first and easiest way is to set
922 up rules based on the article you are just reading. Say you're
923 reading a message by a guy who always writes nonsense and you want
924 to ignore his messages in the future. Hit
925 @samp{L}, to set up a rule which lowers the score.
926 Now Gnus asks you which the criteria for lowering the Score shall
927 be. Hit @samp{?} twice to see all possibilities,
928 we want @samp{a} which means the author (the from
929 header). Now Gnus wants to know which kind of matching we want.
930 Hit either @samp{e} for an exact match or
931 @samp{s} for substring-match and delete afterwards
932 everything but the name to score down all authors with the given
933 name no matter which email address is used. Now you need to tell
934 Gnus when to apply the rule and how long it should last, hit
935 @samp{p} to apply the rule now and let it last
936 forever. If you want to raise the score instead of lowering it say
937 @samp{I} instead of @samp{L}.
939 You can also set up rules by hand. To do this say @samp{V
940 f} in summary buffer. Then you are asked for the name
941 of the score file, it's name.of.group.SCORE for rules valid in
942 only one group or all.Score for rules valid in all groups. See the
943 Gnus manual for the exact syntax, basically it's one big list
944 whose elements are lists again. the first element of those lists
945 is the header to score on, then one more list with what to match,
946 which score to assign, when to expire the rule and how to do the
947 matching. If you find me very interesting, you could add the
948 following to your all.Score:
951 (("references" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 500 nil s))
952 ("message-id" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 999 nil s)))
956 This would add 999 to the score of messages written by me
957 and 500 to the score of messages which are a (possibly
958 indirect) answer to a message written by me. Of course
959 nobody with a sane mind would do this :-)
961 The third alternative is adaptive scoring. This means Gnus
962 watches you and tries to find out what you find
963 interesting and what annoying and sets up rules
964 which reflect this. Adaptive scoring can be a huge help
965 when reading high traffic groups. If you want to activate
969 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
973 in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
976 @subsubheading Question 4.10
978 How can I disable threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups, or
979 set other variables specific for some groups?
981 @subsubheading Answer
983 While in group buffer move point over the group and hit
984 @samp{G c}, this opens a buffer where you
985 can set options for the group. At the bottom of the buffer
986 you'll find an item that allows you to set variables
987 locally for the group. To disable threading enter
988 gnus-show-threads as name of variable and @code{nil} as
989 value. Hit button done at the top of the buffer when
993 @subsubheading Question 4.11
995 Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
998 @subsubheading Answer
1000 Stop those "Can I ..." questions, the answer is always yes
1001 in Gnus Country :-). It's a three step process: First we
1002 make faces (specifications of how summary-line shall look
1003 like) for those postings, then we'll give them some
1004 special score and finally we'll tell Gnus to use the new
1008 @subsubheading Question 4.12
1010 The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
1011 displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in
1012 mail groups. Is this a bug?
1014 @subsubheading Answer
1016 No, that's a matter of design of Gnus, fixing this would
1017 mean reimplementation of major parts of Gnus'
1018 back ends. Gnus thinks ``highest-article-number @minus{}
1019 lowest-article-number = total-number-of-articles''. This
1020 works OK for Usenet groups, but if you delete and move
1021 many messages in mail groups, this fails. To cure the
1022 symptom, enter the group via @samp{C-u RET}
1023 (this makes Gnus get all messages), then
1024 hit @samp{M P b} to mark all messages and
1025 then say @samp{B m name.of.group} to move
1026 all messages to the group they have been in before, they
1027 get new message numbers in this process and the count is
1028 right again (until you delete and move your mail to other
1032 @subsubheading Question 4.13
1034 I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer, how
1035 to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
1037 @subsubheading Answer
1039 You can control the windows configuration by calling the
1040 function gnus-add-configuration. The syntax is a bit
1041 complicated but explained very well in the manual node
1042 "Window Layout". Some popular examples:
1044 Instead 25% summary 75% article buffer 35% summary and 65%
1045 article (the 1.0 for article means "take the remaining
1049 (gnus-add-configuration
1050 '(article (vertical 1.0 (summary .35 point) (article 1.0))))
1054 A three pane layout, Group buffer on the left, summary
1055 buffer top-right, article buffer bottom-right:
1058 (gnus-add-configuration
1064 (summary 0.25 point)
1066 (gnus-add-configuration
1072 (summary 1.0 point)))))
1077 @subsubheading Question 4.14
1079 I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to tweak it?
1081 @subsubheading Answer
1083 You've got to play around with the variable
1084 gnus-summary-line-format. Its value is a string of
1085 symbols which stand for things like author, date, subject
1086 etc. A list of the available specifiers can be found in the
1087 manual node ``Summary Buffer Lines'' and the often forgotten
1088 node ``Formatting Variables'' and its sub-nodes. There
1089 you'll find useful things like positioning the cursor and
1090 tabulators which allow you a summary in table form, but
1091 sadly hard tabulators are broken in 5.8.8.
1093 Since 5.10, Gnus offers you some very nice new specifiers,
1094 e.g., %B which draws a thread-tree and %&user-date which
1095 gives you a date where the details are dependent of the
1096 articles age. Here's an example which uses both:
1099 (setq gnus-summary-line-format ":%U%R %B %s %-60=|%4L |%-20,20f |%&user-date; \n")
1106 :O Re: [Richard Stallman] rfc2047.el | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:06
1107 :O Re: Revival of the ding-patches list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:12
1108 :R > Re: Find correct list of articles for a gro| 25 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:16
1109 :O \-> ... | 21 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:01
1110 :R > Re: Cry for help: deuglify.el - moving stuf| 28 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:34
1111 :O \-> ... | 115 |Raymond Scholz | 1:24
1112 :O \-> ... | 19 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |15:33
1113 :O Slow mailing list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:49
1114 :O Re: '@@' mark not documented | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:50
1115 :R > Re: Gnus still doesn't count messages prope| 23 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:57
1116 :O \-> ... | 18 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:35
1117 :O \-> ... | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt | 0:56
1122 @subsubheading Question 4.15
1124 How to split incoming mails in several groups?
1126 @subsubheading Answer
1128 Gnus offers two possibilities for splitting mail, the easy
1129 nnmail-split-methods and the more powerful Fancy Mail
1130 Splitting. I'll only talk about the first one, refer to
1131 the manual, node "Fancy Mail Splitting" for the latter.
1133 The value of nnmail-split-methods is a list, each element
1134 is a list which stands for a splitting rule. Each rule has
1135 the form "group where matching articles should go to",
1136 "regular expression which has to be matched", the first
1137 rule which matches wins. The last rule must always be a
1138 general rule (regular expression .*) which denotes where
1139 articles should go which don't match any other rule. If
1140 the folder doesn't exist yet, it will be created as soon
1141 as an article lands there. By default the mail will be
1142 send to all groups whose rules match. If you
1143 don't want that (you probably don't want), say
1146 (setq nnmail-crosspost nil)
1150 in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
1152 An example might be better than thousand words, so here's
1153 my nnmail-split-methods. Note that I send duplicates in a
1154 special group and that the default group is spam, since I
1155 filter all mails out which are from some list I'm
1156 subscribed to or which are addressed directly to me
1157 before. Those rules kill about 80% of the Spam which
1158 reaches me (Email addresses are changed to prevent spammers
1162 (setq nnmail-split-methods
1163 '(("duplicates" "^Gnus-Warning:.*duplicate")
1164 ("XEmacs-NT" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@xemacs.invalid.*")
1165 ("Gnus-Tut" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@socha.invalid.*")
1166 ("tcsh" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@mx.gw.invalid.*")
1167 ("BAfH" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@.*uni-muenchen.invalid.*")
1168 ("Hamster-src" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*hamster-sourcen@@yahoogroups.\\(de\\|com\\).*")
1169 ("Tagesschau" "^From: tagesschau <localpart@@www.tagesschau.invalid>$")
1170 ("Replies" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid.*")
1171 ("EK" "^From:.*\\(localpart@@privateprovider.invalid\\|localpart@@workplace.invalid\\).*")
1172 ("Spam" "^Content-Type:.*\\(ks_c_5601-1987\\|EUC-KR\\|big5\\|iso-2022-jp\\).*")
1173 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(This really work\\|XINGA\\|ADV:\\|XXX\\|adult\\|sex\\).*")
1174 ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(\=\?ks_c_5601-1987\?\\|\=\?euc-kr\?\\|\=\?big5\?\\).*")
1175 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*BulkMailer.*\\|.*MIME::Lite.*\\|\\)")
1176 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*CyberCreek Avalanche\\|.*http\:\/\/GetResponse\.com\\)")
1177 ("Spam" "^From:.*\\(verizon\.net\\|prontomail\.com\\|money\\|ConsumerDirect\\).*")
1178 ("Spam" "^Delivered-To: GMX delivery to spamtrap@@gmx.invalid$")
1179 ("Spam" "^Received: from link2buy.com")
1180 ("Spam" "^CC: .*azzrael@@t-online.invalid")
1181 ("Spam" "^X-Mailer-Version: 1.50 BETA")
1182 ("Uni" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@uni-koblenz.invalid.*")
1183 ("Inbox" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*\\(my\ name\\|address@@one.invalid\\|address@@two.invalid\\)")
1189 @subsubheading Question 4.16
1191 How can I ensure more contrast when viewing HTML mail?
1193 @subsubheading Answer
1195 Gnus' built-in simple HTML renderer (you use it if the value of
1196 @code{mm-text-html-renderer} is @code{shr}) uses the colors which are
1197 declared in the HTML mail. However, it adjusts them in order to
1198 prevent situations like dark gray text on black background. In case
1199 the results still have a too low contrast for you, increase the values
1200 of the variables @code{shr-color-visible-distance-min} and
1201 @code{shr-color-visible-luminance-min}.
1203 @node FAQ 5 - Composing messages
1204 @subsection Composing messages
1207 * FAQ 5-1:: What are the basic commands I need to know for sending
1209 * FAQ 5-2:: How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing
1211 * FAQ 5-3:: How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To,
1213 * FAQ 5-4:: Can I set things like From, Signature etc. group based on
1214 the group I post too?
1215 * FAQ 5-5:: Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly
1217 * FAQ 5-6:: Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting
1219 * FAQ 5-7:: Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't
1220 remember all those email addresses?
1221 * FAQ 5-8:: Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1222 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my postings,
1224 * FAQ 5-9:: Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
1225 newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
1227 * FAQ 5-10:: How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1228 * FAQ 5-11:: I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1230 * FAQ 5-12:: I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending
1231 instead of keeping it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
1232 * FAQ 5-13:: People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
1233 aren't they and how to fix it?
1237 @subsubheading Question 5.1
1239 What are the basic commands I need to know for sending mail and postings?
1241 @subsubheading Answer
1243 To start composing a new mail hit @samp{m}
1244 either in Group or Summary buffer, for a posting, it's
1245 either @samp{a} in Group buffer and
1246 filling the Newsgroups header manually
1247 or @samp{a} in the Summary buffer of the
1248 group where the posting shall be send to. Replying by mail
1250 @samp{r} if you don't want to cite the
1251 author, or import the cited text manually and
1252 @samp{R} to cite the text of the original
1253 message. For a follow up to a newsgroup, it's
1254 @samp{f} and @samp{F}
1255 (analogously to @samp{r} and
1258 Enter new headers above the line saying "--text follows
1259 this line--", enter the text below the line. When ready
1260 hit @samp{C-c C-c}, to send the message,
1261 if you want to finish it later hit @samp{C-c
1262 C-d} to save it in the drafts group, where you
1263 can start editing it again by saying @samp{D
1267 @subsubheading Question 5.2
1269 How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing messages?
1271 @subsubheading Answer
1273 Starting from No Gnus, automatic word-wrap is already enabled by
1274 default, see the variable message-fill-column.
1276 For other versions of Gnus, say
1279 (unless (boundp 'message-fill-column)
1280 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
1282 (setq fill-column 72)
1283 (turn-on-auto-fill))))
1287 in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
1289 You can reformat a paragraph by hitting @samp{M-q}
1293 @subsubheading Question 5.3
1295 How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To, signature...?
1297 @subsubheading Answer
1299 There are other ways, but you should use posting styles
1300 for this. (See below why).
1301 This example should make the syntax clear:
1304 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1306 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1307 (address "me@@there.invalid")
1308 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1309 (signature-file "~/.signature")
1310 ("X-SampleHeader" "foobar")
1311 (eval (setq some-variable "Foo bar")))))
1315 The ".*" means that this settings are the default ones
1316 (see below), valid values for the first element of the
1317 following lists are signature, signature-file,
1318 organization, address, name or body. The attribute name
1319 can also be a string. In that case, this will be used as
1320 a header name, and the value will be inserted in the
1321 headers of the article; if the value is @code{nil}, the header
1322 name will be removed. You can also say (eval (foo bar)),
1323 then the function foo will be evaluated with argument bar
1324 and the result will be thrown away.
1327 @subsubheading Question 5.4
1329 Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on the group I post too?
1331 @subsubheading Answer
1333 That's the strength of posting styles. Before, we used ".*"
1334 to set the default for all groups. You can use a regexp
1335 like "^gmane" and the following settings are only applied
1336 to postings you send to the gmane hierarchy, use
1337 ".*binaries" instead and they will be applied to postings
1338 send to groups containing the string binaries in their
1341 You can instead of specifying a regexp specify a function
1342 which is evaluated, only if it returns true, the
1343 corresponding settings take effect. Two interesting
1344 candidates for this are message-news-p which returns t if
1345 the current Group is a newsgroup and the corresponding
1348 Note that all forms that match are applied, that means in
1349 the example below, when I post to
1350 gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general, the settings under
1351 ".*" are applied and the settings under message-news-p and
1352 those under "^gmane" and those under
1353 "^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$". Because
1354 of this put general settings at the top and specific ones
1358 (setq gnus-posting-styles
1360 (name "Frank Schmitt")
1361 (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
1362 (signature-file "~/.signature"))
1363 ((message-news-p) ;;Usenet news?
1364 (address "mySpamTrap@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1365 (reply-to "hereRealRepliesOnlyPlease@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1366 ((message-mail-p) ;;mail?
1367 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
1368 ("^gmane" ;;this is mail, too in fact
1369 (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
1371 ("^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$"
1372 (eval (set (make-local-variable 'message-sendmail-envelope-from)
1373 "Azzrael@@rz-online.de")))))
1378 @subsubheading Question 5.5
1380 Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly spell-checking?
1382 @subsubheading Answer
1384 You can use ispell.el to spell-check stuff in Emacs. So the
1385 first thing to do is to make sure that you've got either
1386 @uref{http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/fmg-members/geoff/ispell.html, ispell}
1387 or @uref{http://aspell.sourceforge.net/, aspell}
1388 installed and in your Path. Then you need
1389 @uref{http://www.kdstevens.com/~stevens/ispell-page.html, ispell.el}
1390 and for on-the-fly spell-checking
1391 @uref{http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html, flyspell.el}.
1392 Ispell.el is shipped with Emacs and available through the XEmacs package system,
1393 flyspell.el is shipped with Emacs and part of XEmacs text-modes package which is
1394 available through the package system, so there should be no need to install them
1397 Ispell.el assumes you use ispell, if you choose aspell say
1400 (setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
1404 in your Emacs configuration file.
1406 If you want your outgoing messages to be spell-checked, say
1409 (add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
1413 In your @file{~/.gnus.el}, if you prefer on-the-fly spell-checking say
1416 (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (flyspell-mode 1)))
1421 @subsubheading Question 5.6
1423 Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting to?
1425 @subsubheading Answer
1427 Yes, say something like
1430 (add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook
1434 "^de\\." (gnus-group-real-name gnus-newsgroup-name))
1435 (ispell-change-dictionary "deutsch8"))
1437 (ispell-change-dictionary "english")))))
1441 in @file{~/.gnus.el}. Change "^de\\." and "deutsch8" to something
1442 that suits your needs.
1445 @subsubheading Question 5.7
1447 Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't remember
1448 all those email addresses?
1450 @subsubheading Answer
1452 There's an very basic solution for this, mail aliases.
1453 You can store your mail addresses in a ~/.mailrc file using a simple
1457 alias al "Al <al@@english-heritage.invalid>"
1461 Then typing your alias (followed by a space or punctuation
1462 character) on a To: or Cc: line in the message buffer will
1463 cause Gnus to insert the full address for you. See the
1464 node "Mail Aliases" in Message (not Gnus) manual for
1467 However, what you really want is the Insidious Big Brother
1468 Database bbdb. Get it through the XEmacs package system or from
1469 @uref{http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/, bbdb's homepage}.
1470 Now place the following in @file{~/.gnus.el}, to activate bbdb for Gnus:
1474 (bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)
1478 Now you probably want some general bbdb configuration,
1479 place them in ~/.emacs:
1483 ;;If you don't live in Northern America, you should disable the
1484 ;;syntax check for telephone numbers by saying
1485 (setq bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil)
1486 ;;Tell bbdb about your email address:
1487 (setq bbdb-user-mail-names
1488 (regexp-opt '("Your.Email@@here.invalid"
1489 "Your.other@@mail.there.invalid")))
1490 ;;cycling while completing email addresses
1491 (setq bbdb-complete-name-allow-cycling t)
1493 (setq bbdb-use-pop-up nil)
1497 Now you should be ready to go. Say @samp{M-x bbdb RET
1498 RET} to open a bbdb buffer showing all
1499 entries. Say @samp{c} to create a new
1500 entry, @samp{b} to search your BBDB and
1501 @samp{C-o} to add a new field to an
1502 entry. If you want to add a sender to the BBDB you can
1503 also just hit @kbd{:} on the posting in the summary buffer and
1504 you are done. When you now compose a new mail,
1505 hit @samp{TAB} to cycle through know
1509 @subsubheading Question 5.8
1511 Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
1512 buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my
1515 @subsubheading Answer
1517 Those images are called X-Faces. They are 48*48 pixel b/w
1518 pictures, encoded in a header line. If you want to include
1519 one in your posts, you've got to convert some image to a
1520 X-Face. So fire up some image manipulation program (say
1521 Gimp), open the image you want to include, cut out the
1522 relevant part, reduce color depth to 1 bit, resize to
1523 48*48 and save as bitmap. Now you should get the compface
1525 @uref{ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/, this site}.
1526 and create the actual X-face by saying
1529 cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon | compface > file.face
1530 cat file.face | sed 's/["\\]/\\&/g' > file.face.quoted
1534 If you can't use compface, there's an online X-face converter at
1535 @uref{http://www.dairiki.org/xface/}.
1536 If you use MS Windows, you could also use the WinFace program,
1537 which used to be available from
1538 @indicateurl{http://www.xs4all.nl/~walterln/winface/}.
1539 Now you only have to tell Gnus to include the X-face in your postings by saying
1542 (setq message-default-headers
1545 (insert-file-contents "~/.xface")
1550 in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you use Gnus 5.10, you can simply add an entry
1553 (x-face-file "~/.xface")
1557 to gnus-posting-styles.
1560 @subsubheading Question 5.9
1562 Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
1563 newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
1566 @subsubheading Answer
1568 Put this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
1571 (setq gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news t)
1575 if you already use Gnus 5.10, if you still use 5.8.8 or
1576 5.9 try this instead:
1579 (with-eval-after-load "gnus-msg"
1580 (unless (boundp 'gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news)
1581 (defadvice gnus-summary-reply (around reply-in-news activate)
1582 "Request confirmation when replying to news."
1584 (when (or (not (gnus-news-group-p gnus-newsgroup-name))
1585 (y-or-n-p "Really reply by mail to article author? "))
1591 @subsubheading Question 5.10
1593 How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
1595 @subsubheading Answer
1597 Since 5.10 Gnus doesn't generate a sender header by
1598 default. For older Gnus' try this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
1601 (with-eval-after-load "message"
1602 (add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
1607 @subsubheading Question 5.11
1609 I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
1612 @subsubheading Answer
1614 You must set the variable gnus-message-archive-group to do
1615 this. You can set it to a string giving the name of the
1616 group where the copies shall go or like in the example
1617 below use a function which is evaluated and which returns
1621 (setq gnus-message-archive-group
1622 '((if (message-news-p)
1629 @subsubheading Question 5.12
1631 I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending instead of keeping
1632 it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
1634 @subsubheading Answer
1636 Add this to your ~/.gnus:
1639 (setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)
1644 @subsubheading Question 5.13
1646 People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
1647 aren't they and how to fix it?
1649 @subsubheading Answer
1651 The message-ID is a unique identifier for messages you
1652 send. To make it unique, Gnus need to know which machine
1653 name to put after the "@@". If the name of the machine
1654 where Gnus is running isn't suitable (it probably isn't
1655 at most private machines) you can tell Gnus what to use
1659 (setq message-user-fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld")
1663 in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you use Gnus 5.9 or earlier, you can use this
1664 instead (works for newer versions as well):
1667 (with-eval-after-load "message"
1668 (let ((fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld"));; <-- Edit this!
1669 (if (boundp 'message-user-fqdn)
1670 (setq message-user-fqdn fqdn)
1671 (gnus-message 1 "Redefining `message-make-fqdn'.")
1672 (defun message-make-fqdn ()
1673 "Return user's fully qualified domain name."
1678 If you have no idea what to insert for
1679 "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", you've got several
1680 choices. You can either ask your provider if he allows
1681 you to use something like
1682 yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, or you can use
1683 somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain
1684 yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which
1685 gives private users a FQDN for free.
1687 Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID
1688 for News at all (and letting the server do the job) by saying
1691 (setq message-required-news-headers
1692 (remove' Message-ID message-required-news-headers))
1696 you can also tell Gnus not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying
1699 (setq message-required-mail-headers
1700 (remove' Message-ID message-required-mail-headers))
1704 , however some mail servers don't generate proper
1705 Message-IDs, too, so test if your Mail Server behaves
1706 correctly by sending yourself a Mail and looking at the Message-ID.
1708 @node FAQ 6 - Old messages
1709 @subsection Old messages
1712 * FAQ 6-1:: How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1713 * FAQ 6-2:: How to archive interesting messages?
1714 * FAQ 6-3:: How to search for a specific message?
1715 * FAQ 6-4:: How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1716 * FAQ 6-5:: I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
1717 some groups). How to do it?
1718 * FAQ 6-6:: I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move
1719 them to another group.
1723 @subsubheading Question 6.1
1725 How to import my old mail into Gnus?
1727 @subsubheading Answer
1729 The easiest way is to tell your old mail program to
1730 export the messages in mbox format. Most Unix mailers
1731 are able to do this, if you come from the MS Windows
1732 world, you may find tools at
1733 @uref{http://mbx2mbox.sourceforge.net/}.
1735 Now you've got to import this mbox file into Gnus. To do
1736 this, create a nndoc group based on the mbox file by
1737 saying @samp{G f /path/file.mbox RET} in
1738 Group buffer. You now have read-only access to your
1739 mail. If you want to import the messages to your normal
1740 Gnus mail groups hierarchy, enter the nndoc group you've
1741 just created by saying @samp{C-u RET}
1742 (thus making sure all messages are retrieved), mark all
1743 messages by saying @samp{M P b} and
1744 either copy them to the desired group by saying
1745 @samp{B c name.of.group RET} or send them
1746 through nnmail-split-methods (respool them) by saying
1750 @subsubheading Question 6.2
1752 How to archive interesting messages?
1754 @subsubheading Answer
1756 If you stumble across an interesting message, say in
1757 gnu.emacs.gnus and want to archive it there are several
1758 solutions. The first and easiest is to save it to a file
1759 by saying @samp{O f}. However, wouldn't
1760 it be much more convenient to have more direct access to
1761 the archived message from Gnus? If you say yes, put this
1762 snippet by Frank Haun <pille3003@@fhaun.de> in
1766 (defun my-archive-article (&optional n)
1767 "Copies one or more article(s) to a corresponding `nnml:' group, e.g.,
1768 `gnus.ding' goes to `nnml:1.gnus.ding'. And `nnml:List-gnus.ding' goes
1769 to `nnml:1.List-gnus-ding'.
1771 Use process marks or mark a region in the summary buffer to archive
1772 more then one article."
1777 (if (featurep 'xemacs)
1778 (replace-in-string gnus-newsgroup-name "^.*:" "")
1779 (replace-regexp-in-string "^.*:" "" gnus-newsgroup-name)))))
1780 (gnus-summary-copy-article n archive-name)))
1784 You can now say @samp{M-x
1785 my-archive-article} in summary buffer to
1786 archive the article under the cursor in a nnml
1787 group. (Change nnml to your preferred back end)
1789 Of course you can also make sure the cache is enabled by saying
1792 (setq gnus-use-cache t)
1796 then you only have to set either the tick or the dormant
1797 mark for articles you want to keep, setting the read
1798 mark will remove them from cache.
1801 @subsubheading Question 6.3
1803 How to search for a specific message?
1805 @subsubheading Answer
1807 There are several ways for this, too. For a posting from
1808 a Usenet group the easiest solution is probably to ask
1809 @uref{http://groups.google.com, groups.google.com},
1810 if you found the posting there, tell Google to display
1811 the raw message, look for the message-id, and say
1812 @samp{M-^ the@@message.id RET} in a
1814 Since Gnus 5.10 there's also a Gnus interface for
1815 groups.google.com which you can call with
1816 @samp{G W}) in group buffer.
1818 Another idea which works for both mail and news groups
1819 is to enter the group where the message you are
1820 searching is and use the standard Emacs search
1821 @samp{C-s}, it's smart enough to look at
1822 articles in collapsed threads, too. If you want to
1823 search bodies, too try @samp{M-s}
1824 instead. Further on there are the
1825 gnus-summary-limit-to-foo functions, which can help you,
1828 Of course you can also use grep to search through your
1829 local mail, but this is both slow for big archives and
1830 inconvenient since you are not displaying the found mail
1831 in Gnus. Here nnir comes into action. Nnir is a front end
1832 to search engines like swish-e or swish++ and
1833 others. You index your mail with one of those search
1834 engines and with the help of nnir you can search through
1835 the indexed mail and generate a temporary group with all
1836 messages which met your search criteria. If this sounds
1837 cool to you, get nnir.el from
1838 @c FIXME Isn't this file in Gnus?
1840 @c Dead link 2013/7.
1841 @uref{ftp://ls6-ftp.cs.uni-dortmund.de/pub/src/emacs/}
1844 @uref{ftp://ftp.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de/pub/src/emacs/}.
1845 Instructions on how to use it are at the top of the file.
1848 @subsubheading Question 6.4
1850 How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
1852 @subsubheading Answer
1854 You can of course just mark the mail you don't need
1855 anymore by saying @samp{#} with point
1856 over the mail and then say @samp{B DEL}
1857 to get rid of them forever. You could also instead of
1858 actually deleting them, send them to a junk-group by
1859 saying @samp{B m nnml:trash-bin} which
1860 you clear from time to time, but both are not the intended
1863 In Gnus, we let mail expire like news expires on a news
1864 server. That means you tell Gnus the message is
1865 expirable (you tell Gnus "I don't need this mail
1866 anymore") by saying @samp{E} with point
1867 over the mail in summary buffer. Now when you leave the
1868 group, Gnus looks at all messages which you marked as
1869 expirable before and if they are old enough (default is
1870 older than a week) they are deleted.
1873 @subsubheading Question 6.5
1875 I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
1876 some groups). How to do it?
1878 @subsubheading Answer
1880 If you want all read messages to be expired (e.g., in
1881 mailing lists where there's an online archive), you've
1882 got two choices: auto-expire and
1883 total-expire. Auto-expire means, that every article
1884 which has no marks set and is selected for reading is
1885 marked as expirable, Gnus hits @samp{E}
1886 for you every time you read a message. Total-expire
1887 follows a slightly different approach, here all article
1888 where the read mark is set are expirable.
1890 To activate auto-expire, include auto-expire in the
1891 Group parameters for the group. (Hit @samp{G
1892 c} in summary buffer with point over the
1893 group to change group parameters). For total-expire add
1894 total-expire to the group-parameters.
1896 Which method you choose is merely a matter of taste:
1897 Auto-expire is faster, but it doesn't play together with
1898 Adaptive Scoring, so if you want to use this feature,
1899 you should use total-expire.
1901 If you want a message to be excluded from expiration in
1902 a group where total or auto expire is active, set either
1903 tick (hit @samp{u}) or dormant mark (hit
1904 @samp{u}), when you use auto-expire, you
1905 can also set the read mark (hit
1909 @subsubheading Question 6.6
1911 I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move them
1914 @subsubheading Answer
1916 Say something like this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
1919 (setq nnmail-expiry-target "nnml:expired")
1923 (If you want to change the value of nnmail-expiry-target
1924 on a per group basis see the question "How can I disable
1925 threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups, or set other
1926 variables specific for some groups?")
1928 @node FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment
1929 @subsection Gnus in a dial-up environment
1932 * FAQ 7-1:: I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can I
1933 minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1934 * FAQ 7-2:: So what was this thing about the Agent?
1935 * FAQ 7-3:: I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do
1937 * FAQ 7-4:: How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
1942 @subsubheading Question 7.1
1944 I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can
1945 I minimize the time I've got to be connected?
1947 @subsubheading Answer
1949 You've got basically two options: Either you use the
1950 Gnus Agent (see below) for this, or you can install
1951 programs which fetch your news and mail to your local
1952 disk and Gnus reads the stuff from your local
1955 If you want to follow the second approach, you need a
1956 program which fetches news and offers them to Gnus, a
1957 program which does the same for mail and a program which
1958 receives the mail you write from Gnus and sends them
1961 Let's talk about Unix systems first: For the news part,
1962 the easiest solution is a small nntp server like
1963 @uref{http://www.leafnode.org/, Leafnode} or
1964 @uref{http://infa.abo.fi/~patrik/sn/, sn},
1965 of course you can also install a full featured news
1967 @uref{http://www.isc.org/software/inn/, inn}.
1968 Then you want to fetch your Mail, popular choices
1969 are @uref{http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/, fetchmail}
1970 and @uref{http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/, getmail}.
1971 You should tell those to write the mail to your disk and
1972 Gnus to read it from there. Last but not least the mail
1973 sending part: This can be done with every MTA like
1974 @uref{http://www.sendmail.org/, sendmail},
1975 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, postfix},
1976 @uref{http://www.exim.org/, exim} or
1977 @uref{http://www.qmail.org/, qmail}.
1979 On windows boxes I'd vote for
1980 @uref{http://www.tglsoft.de/, Hamster},
1981 it's a small freeware, open-source program which fetches
1982 your mail and news from remote servers and offers them
1983 to Gnus (or any other mail and/or news reader) via nntp
1984 respectively POP3 or IMAP@. It also includes a smtp
1985 server for receiving mails from Gnus.
1988 @subsubheading Question 7.2
1990 So what was this thing about the Agent?
1992 @subsubheading Answer
1994 The Gnus agent is part of Gnus, it allows you to fetch
1995 mail and news and store them on disk for reading them
1996 later when you're offline. It kind of mimics offline
1997 newsreaders like Forte Agent. If you want to use
1998 the Agent place the following in @file{~/.gnus.el} if you are
1999 still using 5.8.8 or 5.9 (it's the default since 5.10):
2006 Now you've got to select the servers whose groups can be
2007 stored locally. To do this, open the server buffer
2008 (that is press @samp{^} while in the
2009 group buffer). Now select a server by moving point to
2010 the line naming that server. Finally, agentize the
2011 server by typing @samp{J a}. If you
2012 make a mistake, or change your mind, you can undo this
2013 action by typing @samp{J r}. When
2014 you're done, type 'q' to return to the group buffer.
2015 Now the next time you enter a group on a agentized
2016 server, the headers will be stored on disk and read from
2017 there the next time you enter the group.
2020 @subsubheading Question 7.3
2022 I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do it?
2024 @subsubheading Answer
2026 You can tell the agent to automatically fetch the bodies
2027 of articles which fulfill certain predicates, this is
2028 done in a special buffer which can be reached by
2029 saying @samp{J c} in group
2030 buffer. Please refer to the documentation for
2031 information which predicates are possible and how
2034 Further on you can tell the agent manually which
2035 articles to store on disk. There are two ways to do
2036 this: Number one: In the summary buffer, process mark a
2037 set of articles that shall be stored in the agent by
2038 saying @samp{#} with point over the
2039 article and then type @samp{J s}. The
2040 other possibility is to set, again in the summary
2041 buffer, downloadable (%) marks for the articles you
2042 want by typing @samp{@@} with point over
2043 the article and then typing @samp{J u}.
2044 What's the difference? Well, process marks are erased as
2045 soon as you exit the summary buffer while downloadable
2046 marks are permanent. You can actually set downloadable
2047 marks in several groups then use fetch session ('J s' in
2048 the GROUP buffer) to fetch all of those articles. The
2049 only downside is that fetch session also fetches all of
2050 the headers for every selected group on an agentized
2051 server. Depending on the volume of headers, the initial
2052 fetch session could take hours.
2055 @subsubheading Question 7.4
2057 How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
2060 @subsubheading Answer
2062 All you've got to do is to tell Gnus when you are online
2063 (plugged) and when you are offline (unplugged), the rest
2064 works automatically. You can toggle plugged/unplugged
2065 state by saying @samp{J j} in group
2066 buffer. To start Gnus unplugged say @samp{M-x
2067 gnus-unplugged} instead of
2068 @samp{M-x gnus}. Note that for this to
2069 work, the agent must be active.
2071 @node FAQ 8 - Getting help
2072 @subsection Getting help
2075 * FAQ 8-1:: How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2076 * FAQ 8-2:: I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X (e.g.,
2077 attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2078 * FAQ 8-3:: Which websites should I know?
2079 * FAQ 8-4:: Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2080 * FAQ 8-5:: Where to report bugs?
2081 * FAQ 8-6:: I need real-time help, where to find it?
2085 @subsubheading Question 8.1
2087 How to find information and help inside Emacs?
2089 @subsubheading Answer
2091 The first stop should be the Gnus manual (Say
2092 @samp{C-h i d m Gnus RET} to start the
2093 Gnus manual, then walk through the menus or do a
2094 full-text search with @samp{s}). Then
2095 there are the general Emacs help commands starting with
2096 C-h, type @samp{C-h ? ?} to get a list
2097 of all available help commands and their meaning. Finally
2098 @samp{M-x apropos-command} lets you
2099 search through all available functions and @samp{M-x
2100 apropos} searches the bound variables.
2103 @subsubheading Question 8.2
2105 I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X
2106 (e.g., attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
2108 @subsubheading Answer
2110 There's not only the Gnus manual but also the manuals for message,
2111 emacs-mime, sieve, EasyPG Assistant, and pgg. Those packages are
2112 distributed with Gnus and used by Gnus but aren't really part of core
2113 Gnus, so they are documented in different info files, you should have
2114 a look in those manuals, too.
2117 @subsubheading Question 8.3
2119 Which websites should I know?
2121 @subsubheading Answer
2123 The most important one is the
2124 @uref{http://www.gnus.org, official Gnus website}.
2126 Tell me about other sites which are interesting.
2129 @subsubheading Question 8.4
2131 Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
2133 @subsubheading Answer
2135 There's the newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus (also available as
2136 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.user,
2137 gmane.emacs.gnus.user}) which deals with general Gnus
2138 questions. If you have questions about development versions of
2139 Gnus, you should better ask on the ding mailing list, see below.
2141 If you want to stay in the big8,
2142 news.software.readers is also read by some Gnus
2143 users (but chances for qualified help are much better in
2144 the above groups). If you speak German, there's
2145 de.comm.software.gnus.
2147 The ding mailing list (ding@@gnus.org) deals with development of
2148 Gnus. You can read the ding list via NNTP, too under the name
2149 @uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general,
2150 gmane.emacs.gnus.general} from news.gmane.org.
2153 @subsubheading Question 8.5
2155 Where to report bugs?
2157 @subsubheading Answer
2159 Say @samp{M-x gnus-bug}, this will start
2161 @email{bugs@@gnus.org, gnus bug mailing list}
2162 including information about your environment which make
2163 it easier to help you.
2166 @subsubheading Question 8.6
2168 I need real-time help, where to find it?
2170 @subsubheading Answer
2172 Point your IRC client to irc.freenode.net, channel #gnus.
2174 @node FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus
2175 @subsection Tuning Gnus
2178 * FAQ 9-1:: Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2179 * FAQ 9-2:: How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2180 * FAQ 9-3:: Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2184 @subsubheading Question 9.1
2186 Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
2188 @subsubheading Answer
2190 The reason for this could be the way Gnus reads its
2191 active file, see the node "The Active File" in the Gnus
2192 manual for things you might try to speed the process up.
2193 An other idea would be to byte compile your @file{~/.gnus.el} (say
2194 @samp{M-x byte-compile-file RET ~/.gnus.el
2195 RET} to do it). Finally, if you have require
2196 statements in your .gnus, you could replace them with
2197 @code{with-eval-after-load}, which loads the stuff not at startup
2198 time, but when it's needed. Say you've got this in your
2203 (add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled))
2207 then as soon as you start Gnus, message.el is loaded. If
2211 (with-eval-after-load "message"
2212 (add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
2216 it's loaded when it's needed.
2219 @subsubheading Question 9.2
2221 How to speed up the process of entering a group?
2223 @subsubheading Answer
2225 A speed killer is setting the variable
2226 gnus-fetch-old-headers to anything different from @code{nil},
2227 so don't do this if speed is an issue. To speed up
2228 building of summary say
2235 at the bottom of your @file{~/.gnus.el}, this will make gnus
2236 byte-compile things like
2237 gnus-summary-line-format.
2238 then you could increase the value of gc-cons-threshold
2239 by saying something like
2242 (setq gc-cons-threshold 3500000)
2246 in ~/.emacs. If you don't care about width of CJK
2247 characters or use Gnus 5.10 or younger together with a
2248 recent GNU Emacs, you should say
2251 (setq gnus-use-correct-string-widths nil)
2255 in @file{~/.gnus.el} (thanks to Jesper harder for the last
2256 two suggestions). Finally if you are still using 5.8.8
2257 or 5.9 and experience speed problems with summary
2258 buffer generation, you definitely should update to
2259 5.10 since there quite some work on improving it has
2263 @subsubheading Question 9.3
2265 Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
2267 @subsubheading Answer
2269 The reason could be that you told Gnus to archive the
2270 messages you wrote by setting
2271 gnus-message-archive-group. Try to use a nnml group
2272 instead of an archive group, this should bring you back
2275 @node FAQ - Glossary
2276 @subsection Glossary
2281 When the term @file{~/.gnus.el} is used it just means your Gnus
2282 configuration file. You might as well call it @file{~/.gnus} or
2283 specify another name.
2286 In Gnus terminology a back end is a virtual server, a layer
2287 between core Gnus and the real NNTP-, POP3-, IMAP- or
2288 whatever-server which offers Gnus a standardized interface
2289 to functions like "get message", "get Headers" etc.
2292 When the term Emacs is used in this FAQ, it means either GNU
2296 In this FAQ message means a either a mail or a posting to a
2297 Usenet Newsgroup or to some other fancy back end, no matter
2298 of which kind it is.
2301 MUA is an acronym for Mail User Agent, it's the program you
2302 use to read and write e-mails.
2305 NUA is an acronym for News User Agent, it's the program you
2306 use to read and write Usenet news.