Practical notes on using Gnus

gnus.jpg

My practical notes on getting Gnus to work–fast!

Installation

Watch my video on how to set Gnus up, if you don't have it set up already!

Watch the Video Here

Show read messages in a folder:

/ o – show all old (read) messages
/ a – show all messages regardless of status
/ p – match all articles with a pattern

Show all messages in a folder, incl. read messages.

Refresh view: M-g

Spam

Show all mails in Gnus

Resend a sent message as a new email

Place cursor on mail: SD e

Forward

C-c C-f

Attach file

C-c C-a (mml-attach-file)

Main attachment options

K o Save an attachment
K e gnus-article-view-part-externally
K v gnus-article-view-part

Other attachment options

K C gnus-article-view-part-as-charset
K E gnus-article-encrypt-body
K H gnus-article-browse-html-article
K O gnus-article-save-part-and-strip
K b gnus-summary-display-buttonized
K c gnus-article-copy-part
K d gnus-article-delete-part
K i gnus-article-inline-part
K j gnus-article-jump-to-part
K m gnus-summary-repair-multipart
K o gnus-article-save-part
K r gnus-article-replace-part
K t gnus-article-view-part-as-type
K | gnus-article-pipe-part

Attach a file from Dired

;; Attach files from dired to a Gnus Email
(add-hook 'dired-mode-hook 'turn-on-gnus-dired-mode)
C-c C-m C-a

Replying

S W – system wide reply with message Main One
S w – system wide reply with no message
R – reply with message below
r – reply without message
To change the position of the cursor in replies customize the
variable: message-cite-reply-position

Exit window

C-x 1

Common Gnus marks

N New message (unread)
O Old message (read)
R You've replied
A You've answered
! Ticked/starred (important)
d Marked for deletion
C Message has been cached
U Undecided (part of scoring/reading logic)

Mark a message #

Setting Marks

Alt-u – Clear marks from the current article
! Tick the current article (gnus-summary-tick-article-forward)
I.e. Mark message as important
? Mark the current article as dormant (gnus-summary-mark-as-dormant)
I.e. Ignore a message for now
A dormant article only appears in the summary buffer if there are followups to it
d Mark the current article as read without reading it (gnus-summary-mark-as-read-forward). To mark a message as unread use gnus-summary-put-mark-as-unread
k Mark all articles that have the same subject as the current one as read, and then select the next unread article (gnus-summary-kill-same-subject-and-select).
C Mark all unread articles as read (gnus-summary-catchup).
M C-c Mark all articles in the group as read, even the ticked and dormant articles (gnus-summary-catchup-all).
E Mark the current article as expirable (gnus-summary-mark-as-expirable)
M b Set a bookmark in the current article (gnus-summary-set-bookmark)
M B Remove the bookmark from the current article (gnus-summary-remove-bookmark).

Unmark a message

Alt-u

To add CC or BCC fields to email message

CC – C-c C-f C-c
BCC – C-c C-f C-b

To send a message later in Gnus   delay postpone later

Reset group parameters

delete the .newsrc.eld file – all customizations are lost

Save draft

C-c C-d

Send a draft email

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusGmail

  • Save the mail via C-x C-s and then exit it with C-c C-k
  • When you look in your nndraft:drafts folder, you'll see it there.
  • To edit, hit e on the mail

Mark as read without reading (catchup)

d / M-r
c – catchup – marks everything as read

Customize a group

G-c

Customize the number of messages displayed after C-u RET

gnus-large-newsgroup

Restart Gnus

R

Write/Compose an email

m
C-x m (from anywhere in Emacs)

Show all messages in folder not just unread ones

C-u SPC
C-u RET

Cancel a command

C-c C-k

Delete a message forever

B DEL

MOVE or label a message

B m

Expire

E – mark message as expirable
E - mark message as expirable
"If you do not mark an article as expirable, it will remain on your system until hell freezes over."
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/Expiring-Mail.html

Show all folders

Shift-L

Filter messages/searching mail   search filter

/ a – filters messages from a given author (gnus-summary-limit-to-author)
/ / – filters messages whose subjects matching a given regular expression (gnus-summary-limit-to-subject)
/ s – filters messages whose subjects matching a given regular expression (gnus-summary-limit-to-subject)
/ x – filters messages that match a given extra header, like To: or CC: (gnus-summary-limit-to-extra-headers)
/ t – filters messages at least N days old (gnus-summary-limit-to-age)
See also https://sachachua.com/blog/2008/05/emacs-gnus-searching-mail/

Newsgroups

If you are satisfied that you really never want to see any new groups,
you can set 'gnus-check-new-newsgroups' to 'nil'.

Make a folder/group permanently visible

https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/agyblv/gnus_question_on_gnuspermanentlyvisiblegroups/
G c, then check Permanently visible – always display this group, even when there are no unread articles in it.

How to set up Gnus for News

To set it up with News do the following:
Create a config file called .gnus in your home folder.
Add your news server:
e.g.
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gmane.io"))
You can also add secondary servers:
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
'((nntp "another.newsserver.com")))
Restart Gnus
You may also require an authentication file, typically .authinfo with a line like this:
machine news.newsserver.com login John password 15242@&6

To see all your IMAP folders (including ones with no unread messages):

Press L (uppercase L) in the group buffer

To navigate between messages in Gnus:

n - Move to next unread message
p - Move to previous unread message
next-unread-article – no keyboard shortcut. Use Emacs navigation keys.
j - Jump to a specific message by number
q - Return to the summary (list of messages)

In the summary (message list) view:

SPC - Scroll down in current message or advance to next unread
DEL or Backspace - Scroll up or go to previous unread

To check for new messages in Gnus

Return to the group buffer by pressing q if you're in a message or summary buffer. Press g to refresh all groups and check for new messages.
If you're already in the group buffer and just want to update a specific group:
Move the cursor to the group/folder
Press M-g (or ESC g) to update just that group

Go to specific folder

If you want to go directly to a specific folder:
Press j in the group buffer
Type the folder name
Press RET

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