Gnus Manual. Node: Archived Messages

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5.5: Archived Messages

Gnus provides a few different methods for storing the mail and news you send. The default method is to use the archive virtual server to store the messages. If you want to disable this completely, the gnus-message-archive-group variable should be nil, which is the default.

gnus-message-archive-method says what virtual server Gnus is to use to store sent messages. The default is: 

(nnfolder "archive"
          (nnfolder-directory   "~/Mail/archive")
          (nnfolder-active-file "~/Mail/archive/active")
          (nnfolder-get-new-mail nil)
          (nnfolder-inhibit-expiry t))

You can, however, use any mail select method (nnml, nnmbox, etc.). nnfolder is a quite likeable select method for doing this sort of thing, though. If you don't like the default directory chosen, you could say something like: 

(setq gnus-message-archive-method
      '(nnfolder "archive"
                 (nnfolder-inhibit-expiry t)
                 (nnfolder-active-file "~/News/sent-mail/active")
                 (nnfolder-directory "~/News/sent-mail/")))

Gnus will insert Gcc headers in all outgoing messages that point to one or more group(s) on that server. Which group to use is determined by the gnus-message-archive-group variable.

This variable can be used to do the following:

Let's illustrate:

Just saving to a single group called `MisK': 

(setq gnus-message-archive-group "MisK")

Saving to two groups, `MisK' and `safe': 

(setq gnus-message-archive-group '("MisK" "safe"))

Save to different groups based on what group you are in: 

(setq gnus-message-archive-group
      '(("^alt" "sent-to-alt")
        ("mail" "sent-to-mail")
        (".*" "sent-to-misc")))

More complex stuff: 

(setq gnus-message-archive-group
      '((if (message-news-p)
            "misc-news"
          "misc-mail")))

How about storing all news messages in one file, but storing all mail messages in one file per month: 

(setq gnus-message-archive-group
      '((if (message-news-p)
            "misc-news"
          (concat "mail." (format-time-string
                           "%Y-%m" (current-time))))))

(XEmacs 19.13 doesn't have format-time-string, so you'll have to use a different value for gnus-message-archive-group there.)

Now, when you send a message off, it will be stored in the appropriate group. (If you want to disable storing for just one particular message, you can just remove the Gcc header that has been inserted.) The archive group will appear in the group buffer the next time you start Gnus, or the next time you press F in the group buffer. You can enter it and read the articles in it just like you'd read any other group. If the group gets really big and annoying, you can simply rename if (using G r in the group buffer) to something nice---`misc-mail-september-1995', or whatever. New messages will continue to be stored in the old (now empty) group.

That's the default method of archiving sent messages. Gnus offers a different way for the people who don't like the default method. In that case you should set gnus-message-archive-group to nil; this will disable archiving.

gnus-outgoing-message-group

All outgoing messages will be put in this group. If you want to store all your outgoing mail and articles in the group `nnml:archive', you set this variable to that value. This variable can also be a list of group names.

If you want to have greater control over what group to put each message in, you can set this variable to a function that checks the current newsgroup name and then returns a suitable group name (or list of names).

This variable can be used instead of gnus-message-archive-group, but the latter is the preferred method.

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