Gnus Cheatsheat

Introduction

Follow the quick start guide here to get started using gnus for gmail.

This cheatsheet, should give you the basics of how to use gnus, but the official gnus manual has more detail. Before you read the Gnus manual, here is a word of caution. The official Gnus manual blurs the distinction between news and email. News is public and email is private. Gnus was designed to read and post questions on usenet, which is a little like reddit. Later on, Gnus became an email client. If you read a section in the manual that mentions news or nntp, then it is probably referring to usenet, and you may safely skip that section. If it refers to "mail", then it really means email.

GNUS has a few buffers that you need to know how to use:

the group buffer, which might display your inbox, sent, drafts,
the summary buffer, which is a more detailed view of one folder.
the article buffer, which will display one email.

Each of these buffers has various assorted commands with them. When you first set up gnus, you need to call gnus by executing

M-x gnus

As gnus starts, you should see the emacs icon. Gnus will show you the icon until you press

t

Then you should see the default group buffer.

An article is one piece of information. it'll have a to and a from. it could be an email or an rss iteam

a backend is one way for guns to get articles rss backend backend for getting stuff from the uniq spool

Making Gnus faster

Dovecot

Currently Gnus is kind of slow at accessing your email, because it Gnus only understands how to connect to a server, like IMAP. Meaning if you want to read your email from gmail, then Gnus has to connect to gmail and download your message.

Other mail clients (MUAs), like Thunderbird, store your email locally. This makes searching your mail super fast.

One way to make Gnus faster is by storing your mail locally and having running a local Mail Transfer Agent, probably running an IMAP server.

One program that does this is Dovecot. Unfortunately dovecot won't send your mail. You'll have to configure another program, probably postfix, to send your email. You'll also have to find a way to synchronize your local email and the remote email. You could use offlineimap or mbsync.

Terminology info:gnus#Terminology

Specific Email terminology

Specific usenet terminology

Everything else

mail is anything delivered to me personally. This is private. It usually is email.
reply is to reply to mail. My reply is just between me and the person I'm sending it to.
a mail message is a message that has been mailed. This is usually an email.
splitting sorts your emails according to certain rules. This is something incorrectly called mail filtering. DO NOT use GNUS to split your email. Use the email server for this. Gnus is super slow at splitting email.
news is public to everyone. If I post to news, the whole world
follow up is a response to a public article. My follow up is
an article is a message that has been posted as news
message is a mail message or a news article
threading to arrange mail, such that all mail related to the
root the first article in the thread. And may not apply to mail.
message is an email or article.
backend is the underlying service that Gnus accesses the messages (messages mean either mail or articles). Since the front-end side of GNUS doesn't care where the articles come from, Gnus can can support several backends and treat them all the same. This means that Gnus can access RSS articles, usenet articles, and email, treat them all the same and forwarded them all as email. So I can easily read a phoronix article in Gnus and then forward that article in an email.

Gnus supports several backends. The most commonly used is the nnimap backend, which uses IMAP to access email. This is how Gnus can read your hotmail or your gmail accounts.

nnimap is the backend that access remote IMAP servers like gmail.
nntp accesses mail. This is probably usenet.
nnspool accesses local spool news.
nnml accesses local mail.

Unfortunately, Gnus does not support Maildir, which is the cooler local mail format at this time. If you wish Gnus to access local mail quickly, the best way to do it is via creating an Maildir via isync, running a local dovecot server to turn it into an local IMAP server, and then configuring Gnus to point to that.

native backends are the default backend Gnus uses to connect to servers. Groups like this have names like:

(setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "gmail" (nnimap-inbox "Google") (nnimap-address "imap.gmail.com") ; it could also be imap.googlemail.com if that's your server. (nnimap-server-port "993") (nnimap-stream ssl) (nnimap-split-methods default))) #+END_SRC

secondary backends are halfway between native and foreign backends. They also have names like:
foreign these are groups that are accessed by non-native and non-secondary select methods. They have names like

server is a machine that Gnus connects to, from which to get news and mail.
select method is the structure that specifies the Gnus backend, the server to connect to, and the virtual server settings.
virual server is the bit of code that specifies the backend and the server, which to connect. A virtual server specifies the backend to use and the virtual server's name. A virtual server in emails lisp that connects to gmail using the native method looks using the nnimp backend looks like:

Find the News

gnu-select-method tells guns where to look for news.

solid groups all groups listed in the group buffer are solid groups
head the top part of a message where info is put
body is part of the message
NOV is news overview. They are provied by the nntp backend. Everytime gnus enters a group it asks the backend
level each group has a level
zombie groups are like killed groups
active file is where the server stores info on the articles they carry. This file can be large
a bogus group exists in the .newsrc file BUT is not known to the server aka it likely doesn't exist
activating is asking the server for info on a group and computing the number of unread article that group has
spool news servers store their files locally. Having 1 file per article is a traditonal spool
a server connects to and gets the mail
select method specifying the backend
washing taking a buffer and running it through a filter, which makes it more visually pleasing
ephemeral most groups store data on what articles one has read. but store nada and disapear when you exit the group
root the first artcile in a thread
parent an article that has responses
a child an article that responds to the parents
digest is a collect of mesages in a file
splitting is sorting your emails according to certain rules

gnus-select-method is your native group. Any other news that you get is a secondary group or a foreign group.

Also note that a group is just the mail connections you have to 1 server. ie: my "news.gwene.org" is a group, BUT I have several different feeds from it. I have xkcd, etc.

Also, if you need to change servers, think before you change gnus-select-methods. When you change gnus-select-methods, your .newsr file becomes worthless, and gnus no longer knows what articles you have read.

Just read info:gnus#Changing Servers before you change gnus-select-method

Getting mail from multiple servers

Of course. You can specify more sources for articles in the variable gnus-secondary-select-methods. These are secondary groups. NOT foreign groups. Add something like this in ‘~/.gnus.el’:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nntp "news.yourSecondProvider.net")) (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nntp "news.yourThirdProvider.net")) #+END_SRC

the backends

the nntp backend commonly gathers news articles via NNTP

the nnimap backend grabs mail via IMAP

the nnspool backend grabs mail via the spool directory. This is local mail.

This is the way that GNUS recommends to do it in the manual.

the nnml backend grabs mail via a file format

native

secondary

foreign groups

G m make a new group, and gnus will prompt you for a address and such.

Start up Files

Gnus writes information to .newsrc and .newsrc.eld. This is a duplication. I can safely tell GNUS to using the .newsrc file, and just use .newsrc.eld.

#+BEGIN_SRC elisp (setq gnus-save-newsrc-file nil gnus-read-newsrc-file nil gnus-startup-file "~/.newsrc.eld" ) #+END_SRC

gnus-harvest

By default when GNUS starts it will read "~/.gnus.elc". If that file is not there, then it will check "~/.gnus.el", and finally it checks "~/.gnus".

Gnus Buffers

The Server Buffer

This stores all emails address written and read by you in an sql-lite database.

Various Commands

The Group Buffer

Su | u toggles subscription of a usenet group

The Group Buffer is the various folders buffer. It looks like:

0:*nnimap+imap.fastmail.com:INBOX 0: nnimap+imap.fastmail.com:Sent 0: nnimap+imap.fastmail.com:Fun Stuff 0: nnimap+imap.fastmail.com:mailing list 1

Group mode line

You can customize how you want your group buffer to display your groups.

Various commands

m
n
p
P go to the previous group
N go to the next group
c mark all unread articles in this group as read.

G p/c show the group parameters. p shows you the lisp, c shows you the customize interface.
Enter over an attachment when open the attachment

#+BEGIN_SRC org # url text/html; w3m -I %{charset} -T text/html; copiousoutput;

# image viewer image/*; feh -F -d -S filename '%s';

# pdf application/pdf; zathura '%s'; image/pdf; zathura '%s'

# video video/* ; mplayer '%s' audio/* ; mplayer '%s'

# Office files. application/msword; soffice '%s' application/rtf; soffice '%s' text/richtext; soffice '%s' application/vnd.ms-excel; soffice '%s' application/vnd.ms-powerpoint; soffice '%s'

#+END_SRC

SPC open this group and read the first unread article
C-u 10 SPC opens the first 10 unread articles and starts reading the first one
C-u RET opens all email
A u lists all groups whether they have unread articles or not.
G S u sort by number of unread articles
S l list the level of the current group. You are reccommeded to keep all of your groups on level 1 or 2 (low).
G S v sort by group score
C marked all articles in the buffer (even the ticked ones) as read
c mark all unticked articles as read

Searching

# mark groups
G G with point on a folder, will search the server side for email matching the search term that is in that folder
// limit the mails by subject at the summary buffer (this is done locally)
/a limit by author at the summary buffer (this is done locally)
/A limit by address From/To/Cc match a given address
/w to cancel the current filter
more info: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/gnus.html#Limiting

levels

- `S l` will set the level of subscribedness for the group.

browse foreign server

B lets you browse a foreign server and look for groups

group topics

u to toggle subscription to the group or not.

Gnus Emacs -- I wuw it! 3: comp.emacs 2: alt.religion.emacs Naughty Emacs 452: alt.sex.emacs 0: comp.talk.emacs.recovery Misc 8: comp.binaries.fractals 13: comp.sources.unix

Just press "t" to try it out. To make it permanent, do a

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode) #+END_SRC

Once you have enabled this minor mode you can sort out your groups into topics.

What article to show by default when you press space?

T n create a new topic
T TAB indent the current topic so it becomes a subtopic on the previous topic.
M TAB unindent the current topic
C-k and C-y work to seamlessly to reorganize the groups by topic.
RET or SPC either fold a group or select a group
T m move the group to a topic
T j jump to a topic

group parameters

Show the unread article with the highest score. (setq gnus-auto-select-first 'best) You can specify that specific groups have mail-to addresses.

info:gnus#Group Parameters

gnus-parameters variable

(to-address . "bransj@hotmail.com")

You can set this via

info:gnus#Group Parameters

I can also set mail to be auto-expirable.

(setq gnus-parameters '(("mail\\..*" (gnus-show-threads nil) (gnus-use-scoring nil) (gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z%I%(%[%d:%ub%-23,23f%]%) %s\n") (gcc-self . t) (display . all))

("^nnimap:\$foo.bar\$$" (to-group . "\\1"))

("mail\\.me" (gnus-use-scoring t))

default sorting of groups

("list\\..*" (total-expire . t) (broken-reply-to . t))))

(setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-score)

The Summary Buffer

(setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank) The summary buffer contains all of your unread email from a email folder. Your summary buffer could be your inbox, or your sent folder.

Various commands

// limit local mail by subject. Limiting means to search mail locally.
/a
C-c C-f

limiting commands

threading commands

Pick and Read. You pick which articles you wish to read before you read them. Very cool.

show threading

SPC scrolls the article forward by one page
RET scrolls the article backward by one page
> go to end of article
< go to beginning of article
u or =!= ticks the message. The next time you open that folder, this message will be there EVEN if it is already read
W w wraps long lines. Which might make the message prettier.
W r Decodes ROT13, which fixes the quotes from the microsoft products.
E makes an email as expirable. That means that gnus will automatically delete my email for me in a week after
o over an attachment will save the file
T n go to the next article in thread
T p go to the previous article in thread
C-M-S n go to the next article in thread
C-M-S p go to the next article in thread
* mark the email as persistent. The email won't be deleted.
o save the attached MIME part of the email
K o save the attached MIME part of the email
^ show the parent of the current article
M-g or C-u M-g fetch new or old articles.
S z kill zombie groups
S L reply to the mailing list with the content of the previous email.
l list all groups that have unread articles
A ! list groups with ticked articles
C-c C-s sorts the groups
G S a sort via alphbetically
G S u by number of unread emails
G n go to the next article with the same subject
G p go to the previous article with the same subject
b delete bogus groups
F find new groups and process 'em
C-c C-M-x run expire on all groups. DELETE expired articles
B browse foriegn server looking for groups
f follow up to article w/o including article
F follow up to the article an include the article
r replies without including the original message
R replies and includes the original message. I might want to swap those.
// limit by subject
/ s limit by subject
/ a limit by author
T T toggle threading
T h hide the current subthread
T l lower the score of the current article
T i increase the score of the current article
T k kill all articles in the current thread
T d descend the thread
T a ascend the thread
T o go to the top of the thread

customizing the summary buffer line

(setq gnus-show-threads t) The summary buffer shows the articles in a group. You can show all sorts of cool stuff with it via (setq gnus-summary-line-format "%B%U%R%z%I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n")

The B option looks particularly cool. It sorts messages via thread.

info:gnus#Summary Buffer Lines

The Article Buffer

apparently it's possible to change the ASCII of the messages to tiny images and look super rad.

various commands

C-c C-a to attach a file
C-c C-m f
C-c C-m C-s
C-c C-m C-e
C-c C-m C-c

Hiding Headers

I could customize Gnus to only show me the author of the email and the subject and hide all other headers

(setq gnus-visible-headers "^From:\\|^Subject:") info:gnus#Hiding Headers

Signing and Encrypting Email

info:gnus#Signing and encrypting After subscribing the group INBOX, the INBOX could still be invisible if INBOX does not contain unread emails. That makes no sense for an email client (It does make sense for a stone age news reader)! Anyway, the solution is simple, `C-u 5 gnus-group-list-all-groups` will get desired result. I assigned hotkey "o" to it. Here is my elisp code you could paste into your .emacs. See the Gnus Manual on Listing Groups for more details. Or just press j

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (defun my-gnus-group-list-subscribed-groups () "List all subscribed groups with or without un-read messages" (interactive) (gnus-group-list-all-groups 5) ) (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook ;; list all the subscribed groups even they contain zero un-read messages (lambda () (local-set-key "o" 'my-gnus-group-list-subscribed-groups )) ) #+END_SRC

pressing RET on a folder will show you "smart messages" that gnus thinks are important.

online documentation

things I can change/add documentation for

changing servers is only accurate for nntp, not nnimap or nnmaildir

These messages are usually the unread messages. pressing C-u RET will show you all messages http://www.xsteve.at/prg/gnus/

the active file page is not relevant to maildirs

things to play with my Gnus

group highlighting

searching with RSS in gnus

problems with gnus

info:gnus#Changing Servers info:gnus#The Active File info:gnus#Group Highlighting https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NotMuch#toc1 https://www.rath.org/whats-wrong-with-gnus.html

gnus.org 23 KB Permalink History Raw

Gnus Cheatsheat

Introduction

Making Gnus faster

Dovecot

Terminology info:gnus#Terminology

Specific Email terminology

Specific usenet terminology

Everything else

Find the News

gnu-select-method tells guns where to look for news.

Getting mail from multiple servers

the backends

the nntp backend commonly gathers news articles via NNTP

the nnimap backend grabs mail via IMAP

the nnspool backend grabs mail via the spool directory. This is local mail.

the nnml backend grabs mail via a file format

native

secondary

foreign groups

Start up Files

gnus-harvest

Gnus Buffers

The Server Buffer

Various Commands

The Group Buffer

Group mode line

Various commands

Searching

levels

- S l will set the level of subscribedness for the group.

browse foreign server

group topics

What article to show by default when you press space?

group parameters

default sorting of groups

The Summary Buffer

Various commands

limiting commands

threading commands

Pick and Read. You pick which articles you wish to read before you read them. Very cool.

show threading

customizing the summary buffer line

The Article Buffer

various commands

Hiding Headers

Signing and Encrypting Email

Check section "Subscribe groups" for details.

pressing RET on a folder will show you "smart messages" that gnus thinks are important.

online documentation

things I can change/add documentation for

changing servers is only accurate for nntp, not nnimap or nnmaildir

the active file page is not relevant to maildirs

things to play with my Gnus

group highlighting

searching with RSS in gnus

problems with gnus

gnus.org 23 KB

Permalink History Raw

- `S l` will set the level of subscribedness for the group.