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Archive-name: GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5
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The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would
prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22.
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Mail and News
138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable
mail-yank-prefix. For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix. For mh-e, set
mh-ins-buf-prefix.
For fancier control of citations, use Supercite. See question 105.
To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to
message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate
regexp.
139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the
mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by
including an "FCC:" header.
If you use standard mail, you can automatically create a "BCC:" to
yourself by putting
(setq mail-self-blind t)
in your .emacs file. You can automatically include an "FCC:" field by
putting something like the following in your .emacs file:
(setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing"))
The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly
by VM, but not always by Rmail. See question 141.
If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file.
It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file.
140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
* You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
with commas. This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
like this one:
To: Willy Smith <wks@xpnsv.lwyrs.com>
However, you do not need to -- and probably should not, unless your
system's version of /usr/ucb/mail (aka mailx) supports RFC822 --
separate addresses with commas in your ~/.mailrc file.
* Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you
start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can
type "M-x rebuild-mail-abbrevs RET" to make Emacs reread your ~/.mailrc
file.
* If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following:
(add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)
Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type
RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,'). You can force their
expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e"
(M-x expand-abbrev).
141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail
format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format). Rmail will try to
convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it
makes errors. For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages
file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function
set-rmail-inbox-list.
142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their
key bindings.
143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses. This
indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.
RMS writes:
Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files.
On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing
mail. You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.
Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access. On these
systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.
144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it
in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k).
If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and
you want to put them in a Unix mail file, use C-o on each message.
If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail
format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and
output file names.
145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
other recipients?
Ron Isaacson <isaacson@seas.upenn.edu> says: When you hit "r" to reply in
Rmail, by default it CCs all of the original recipients (everyone on the
original "To" and "CC" lists). With a prefix argument (i.e., typing "C-u"
before "r"), it replies only to the sender. However, going through the
whole C-u business every time you want to reply is a pain. This is the
best fix I've been able to come up with:
(defun rmail-reply-t ()
"Reply only to the sender of the current message. (See rmail-reply.)"
(interactive)
(rmail-reply t))
(add-hook 'rmail-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
(define-key rmail-mode-map "r" 'rmail-reply-t)
(define-key rmail-mode-map "R" 'rmail-reply)))
146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?
Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson
<trey@cs.berkeley.edu> at
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html
Version 6.x of VM supports MIME. See question 104.
147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
To start Emacs in Gnus:
emacs -f gnus
in Rmail:
emacs -f rmail
A more convenient way to start with Gnus:
alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus'
gnus
It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader
from your .emacs file. This would cause problems if you needed to run
two copies of Emacs at one time. Also, this would make it difficult for
you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.
148: How do I read news under Emacs?
Use M-x gnus. It is documented in Info (see question 14).
149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?
There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests
are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before
blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11
claims to fix this.
You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this:
(setq nntp-maximum-request 1)
You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by
telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine
(i.e., "telnet server-machine 119"). The server should give its version
number in the welcome message. Type "quit" to get out.
Also see question 75 in this FAQ for some additional ideas.
150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
ClariNews)?
Underlining appears like this:
_^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg
Per Abrahamsen <amanda@iesd.auc.dk> suggests using the following code,
which uses the underline face to turn such text into true underlining:
(defun gnus-article-prepare-overstrike ()
;; Prepare article for overstrike commands.
(save-excursion
(set-buffer gnus-article-buffer)
(let ((buffer-read-only nil))
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (search-forward "\b" nil t)
(let ((next (following-char))
(previous (char-after (- (point) 2))))
(cond ((eq next previous)
(delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
(put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
'face 'bold))
((eq next ?_)
(delete-region (1- (point)) (1+ (point)))
(put-text-property (1- (point)) (point)
'face 'underline))
((eq previous ?_)
(delete-region (- (point) 2) (point))
(put-text-property (point) (1+ (point))
'face 'underline))))))))
(add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-overstrike)
If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can
destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this
automatically via
(add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook
'(lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max))))
151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
Use gnus-uu. Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list
of available commands.
152: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
From the Gnus FAQ (see question 158):
Pranav Kumar Tiwari <pktiwari@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: I posted the same
query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the
answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am
using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings:
(setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil
gnus-read-active-file 'some
gnus-nov-is-evil nil
gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server))
153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation:
M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e
Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
the "*Newsgroup" buffer.
154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
headers?
Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:"
headers are "Unknown header" fields.
For the "Newsgroups:" header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the
"Xref" header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article
(as long as your site carries the cross-post group).
If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
this:
(gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")
155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
Set nntp-debug-read to nil.
156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read. You can control this with
the variable gnus-use-cross-reference.
157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> explains:
The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News. NNTP
POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang
around and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was
successful. (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status
of the waited for job is a different sort of problem.) It ends up
taking a long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often
waits for another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it
can file the article.
My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but
rather use newsspool. This loses some error-catching functionality,
but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors
on its own. The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should
look better to most folks as that update propagates around.
158: Where can I find out more about Gnus?
Look for the Gnus FAQ, available at
http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html
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Copyright 1994-1998 Reuven M. Lerner
Copyright 1992-1993 Steven Byrnes
Copyright 1990-1992 Joseph Brian Wells
This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers
("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other
formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS), and updated with new information.
The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ
itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved
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contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the
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The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that
the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work
itself allows free copying and redistribution.
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People who helped with this version of the FAQ:
Ethan Bradford <ethanb@u.washington.edu>, William G. Dubuque
<wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>, Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>,
and Denby Wong <3dw16@qlink.QueensU.CA>.
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