From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Hi,

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not persist the marks ?

For example, I marked all the posts here as read. I left the group, got
back and all articles are marked as New.

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong
at some point.

Thank you.

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On 2026-03-16 20:31, Xavier Maillard wrote:

Hi,

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not persist the marks ?

For example, I marked all the posts here as read. I left the group, got
back and all articles are marked as New.

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something
wrong at some point.

You can not. Alpine does not cache messages, nor maintain a permanent
index. It works with email because the mail server, not Alpine, keeps
the info. When the folder is local, it writes the info into that folder.

You can delete messages, that holds.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
ESEfc-Efc+, EUEfc-Efc|;
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2026-03-16 20:31, Xavier Maillard wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not >>persist the marks ?

For example, I marked all the posts here as read. I left the group, got >>back and all articles are marked as New.

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something
wrong at some point.

You can not. Alpine does not cache messages, nor maintain a permanent
index.

alpine, and pine before, use a conventional .newsrc file to maintain an
index of read Usenet articles.

It works with email because the mail server, not Alpine, keeps
the info. When the folder is local, it writes the info into that folder.

You can delete messages, that holds.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not >persist the marks ?

For example, I marked all the posts here as read. I left the group, got
back and all articles are marked as New.

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong
at some point.

alpine, and pine before, uses a conventional .newsrc file with a
variation that names the server so it may be used with multiple servers.
It's in the user's home directory.

The one I use with eternal-september is named .newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

and permissions are 644.

-rw-r--r--

My guess is you have a permission error.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong
at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named .newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

and permissions are 644.

-rw-r--r--

My guess is you have a permission error.

ls -la .ne*
-rw-r--r-- 1 x staff 473 16 mars 21:20 .newsrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 x staff 427 16 mars 06:00 .newsrc.old

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong >>>at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named >>.newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

If you are going to play selective quoting games, then I cannot help
you. In the part of the quote you cut, I explained alpine's naming
pattern so it can be used with multiple News servers.

and permissions are 644.

-rw-r--r--

My guess is you have a permission error.

ls -la .ne*
-rw-r--r-- 1 x staff 473 16 mars 21:20 .newsrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 x staff 427 16 mars 06:00 .newsrc.old

Those permissions are correct. You are going to have to wait till the programmer reads the newsgroup and offers a suggestion.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong >>>> at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named
.newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

If you are going to play selective quoting games, then I cannot help
you. In the part of the quote you cut, I explained alpine's naming
pattern so it can be used with multiple News servers.

Sorry. I did not understand your answer.

For the test, I renamed my .newsrc file like yours (I am also using
eternal).
But as soon as I got back to alpine, alpine created a fresh .newsrc file.

I should read the documentation again I guess.

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong >>>>> at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named
.newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

If you are going to play selective quoting games, then I cannot help
you. In the part of the quote you cut, I explained alpine's naming
pattern so it can be used with multiple News servers.

Sorry. I did not understand your answer.

For the test, I renamed my .newsrc file like yours (I am also using >eternal).
But as soon as I got back to alpine, alpine created a fresh .newsrc file.

I should read the documentation again I guess.

In settings

M > S > C

X Enable multiple Newsrc

otherwise it uses .newsrc only
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong
at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named
.newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

If you are going to play selective quoting games, then I cannot help
you. In the part of the quote you cut, I explained alpine's naming
pattern so it can be used with multiple News servers.

Sorry. I did not understand your answer.

For the test, I renamed my .newsrc file like yours (I am also using
eternal).
But as soon as I got back to alpine, alpine created a fresh .newsrc file.

I should read the documentation again I guess.

In settings

M > S > C

X Enable multiple Newsrc

otherwise it uses .newsrc only

Perfect !

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

What's the correct way to persist marks ? I may have done something wrong
at some point.

The one I use with eternal-september is named
.newsrc-news.eternal-september.org

What is the purpose not to use default .newsrc file ?

If you are going to play selective quoting games, then I cannot help
you. In the part of the quote you cut, I explained alpine's naming
pattern so it can be used with multiple News servers.

Sorry. I did not understand your answer.

For the test, I renamed my .newsrc file like yours (I am also using
eternal).
But as soon as I got back to alpine, alpine created a fresh .newsrc file. >>>
I should read the documentation again I guess.

In settings

M > S > C

X Enable multiple Newsrc

otherwise it uses .newsrc only

Perfect !

The alpine .newsrc naming convention is a good idea, so I use it with
other newsreaders too.

I hope Eduardo chimes in at some point to make a suggestion about why
changes aren't being saved to your file if it's not a permission issue.
He's the programmer and a very nice guy.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not persist the marks ?

The alpine model of reading newsgroups is not the same model that other newsreaders have. Alpine tries to imitate your email ideas in newsgroups,
not the other way around (which is what you expect).

What this means in practice is that when you read a message (email or
news) this is marked read. If you do not want the message to appear in
your index you must "D"elete it. But wait, you cannot delete a message in
a newsgroup, because if you could, no one else would be able to read it,
so the "D"elete command is actually an "Exclude" command: Every time you "D"elete a message from a newsgroup, you will "Exclude" it from the view
the next time you open the newsgroup, so that is the official way to not
to see a message after you have read it: delete it.

Alpine offers the "&" comand in newsgroups to UNexclude messages that have been excluded. You can read old posts that have been exlcuded and not
expired in your server that way.

That is the way to do that. However, I do not read newsgroups that way.
What I do is to use a maildrop in Alpine that moves all the messages from
the newsgroup to a local folder, where I keep track of what I replied to,
and have read, just like reading email in a normal folder, intead of a newsgroup. If you are using Alpine to read this message, follow the
following link withing Alpine to read its help. x-alpine-help:h_maildrop

I hope this helps.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not
persist the marks ?

The alpine model of reading newsgroups is not the same model that other newsreaders have. Alpine tries to imitate your email ideas in newsgroups, not
the other way around (which is what you expect).

More than I expect, this is the way I used to see it :)

What this means in practice is that when you read a message (email or news) this is marked read. If you do not want the message to appear in your index you must "D"elete it. But wait, you cannot delete a message in a newsgroup, because if you could, no one else would be able to read it, so the "D"elete command is actually an "Exclude" command: Every time you "D"elete a message from a newsgroup, you will "Exclude" it from the view the next time you open the newsgroup, so that is the official way to not to see a message after you have read it: delete it.

Alpine offers the "&" comand in newsgroups to UNexclude messages that have been excluded. You can read old posts that have been exlcuded and not expired
in your server that way.

Thanks for that.

That is the way to do that. However, I do not read newsgroups that way. What I do is to use a maildrop in Alpine that moves all the messages from the newsgroup to a local folder, where I keep track of what I replied to, and have read, just like reading email in a normal folder, intead of a newsgroup.
If you are using Alpine to read this message, follow the following link withing Alpine to read its help. x-alpine-help:h_maildrop

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a
but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my
inbox-path which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the
inbox-path, I did a but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should
I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not
have one, I recommend you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine.

2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory ~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

3) In my .pinerc I have the following configurations:

incoming-folders=CMP "#move news.eternal-september.org/user=myid/nntp/ssl}#news.comp.mail.pine ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine"

(the above is probably folded into several lines. In my .pinerc it is in
one line)

Now when I start Alpine I see a folder called "CMP", which when I opened
for the first time it took a long time to get all the messages from the
server into the folder, but when I open it after that, it is almost
immediate.

In number 3) above, I can have the maildrop in an IMAP server instead of a local folder. If you want to have this folder be remote, change the part ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine to something appropriate, such as,

{some.imap.server/user=.../ssl}location/of/folder

The exact string to write depends on your server. If you need help, do not hesitate to ask.
--
Eduardo

--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path >> which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a
but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not have one, I recommend
you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine.

2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory ~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

Is this a simple file or a folder ?

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path >>>which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a >>>but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not have one,
I recommend you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine.

2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory >>~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

Is this a simple file or a folder ?

If you use Berkeley Mail format for your message archive, it'll be a fkat
file with the Berkeley-style boundary. Your choice.

"touch" literally creates an empty file, not a directory.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path >>>> which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a >>>> but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not have one,
I recommend you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine.

2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory >>> ~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

Is this a simple file or a folder ?

If you use Berkeley Mail format for your message archive, it'll be a fkat file with the Berkeley-style boundary. Your choice.

"touch" literally creates an empty file, not a directory.

Ok, got it. I forgot to put a { in my incoming-folder but Pine did not
tell me what was wrong...

I can now browse my maildrop folder. Thank you all for your explanations.

Just curious: can this be applied for my /var/mail spool file ?

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

Ok, got it. I forgot to put a { in my incoming-folder but Pine did not
tell me what was wrong...

I can now browse my maildrop folder. Thank you all for your
explanations.

Just curious: can this be applied for my /var/mail spool file ?

Yes, to any folder (file containing messages). You can move from or move
to messages to your /var/spool file.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path >>>>> which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a >>>>> but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not have one,
I recommend you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine. >>
2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory >>>> ~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

Is this a simple file or a folder ?

If you use Berkeley Mail format for your message archive, it'll be a fkat
file with the Berkeley-style boundary. Your choice.

"touch" literally creates an empty file, not a directory.

Ok, got it. I forgot to put a { in my incoming-folder but Pine did not
tell me what was wrong...

I can now browse my maildrop folder. Thank you all for your explanations.

Just curious: can this be applied for my /var/mail spool file ?

I suppose. On my system, the inbox lives in my home directory anyway.
Can you change the server setting if this is what you prefer?
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Thu, 19 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Xavier Maillard <x@maillard.im> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

I read it but I failed to set it up. I already have defined my inbox-path
which is using my Imap. I tried to M S C then on the inbox-path, I did a >>>>>> but it replaced my previous value. Any hint ? Should I do C or A ?

This is my setup.

1) I have an incoming-folders-collection. If you do not have one,
I recommend you set up one: Press M S C and enable

[X] Enable Incoming Folders Collection

If this the first time you ever do this, you will need to restart Alpine. >>>
2) In my local folders I have a folder "comp.mail.pine" in the directory >>>>> ~/.inc-fld. You can do this with the command

mkdir ~/.inc-fld
touch ~/.inc-fld/comp.mail.pine

Is this a simple file or a folder ?

If you use Berkeley Mail format for your message archive, it'll be a fkat >>> file with the Berkeley-style boundary. Your choice.

"touch" literally creates an empty file, not a directory.

Ok, got it. I forgot to put a { in my incoming-folder but Pine did not
tell me what was wrong...

I can now browse my maildrop folder. Thank you all for your explanations.

Just curious: can this be applied for my /var/mail spool file ?

I suppose. On my system, the inbox lives in my home directory anyway.
Can you change the server setting if this is what you prefer?

Too complex for me. I will surely apply a maildrop to this thing.

Cheers

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

That is the way to do that. However, I do not read newsgroups that
way.

Instead I do that ... reading in "catch-all" mode

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not
persist the marks ?

What this means in practice is that when you read a message (email or news) this is marked read. If you do not want the message to appear in your index you must "D"elete it. But wait, you cannot delete ...

Yes, this is the way I do it. I "Delete" (i.e. mark for deletion) all
messages in a NG which I've read and consider as no longer interesting.

When I change NG I DO NOT delete what is left, so next time I will see
what I left there, and anything new.

The changes are recorded in .newsrc

Alpine offers the "&" comand in newsgroups to UNexclude messages that
have been excluded. You can read old posts that have been exlcuded and
not expired in your server that way.

That's true. I used "&" in the past if I wanted to see and old message,

However since I moved to eternal-september that practically does not
work. My previous news servers used to expire messages after a few
months ... eternal-september seems to keep them for YEARS ... this
means that, after &, it takes an awful lot of time for sorting.
--- Synchronet 3.21e-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.mail.pine

On Fri, 20 Mar 2026, LC's No-Spam Newsreading account wrote:

On Tue, 17 Mar 2026, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

That is the way to do that. However, I do not read newsgroups that way.

Instead I do that ... reading in "catch-all" mode

On Mon, 16 Mar 2026, Xavier Maillard wrote:

can someone explain to me why, while reading a NNTP newsgroup, does not >>> persist the marks ?

What this means in practice is that when you read a message (email or news) >> this is marked read. If you do not want the message to appear in your index >> you must "D"elete it. But wait, you cannot delete ...

Yes, this is the way I do it. I "Delete" (i.e. mark for deletion) all messages in a NG which I've read and consider as no longer interesting.

When I change NG I DO NOT delete what is left, so next time I will see what I
left there, and anything new.

The changes are recorded in .newsrc

Alpine offers the "&" comand in newsgroups to UNexclude messages that have >> been excluded. You can read old posts that have been exlcuded and not
expired in your server that way.

That's true. I used "&" in the past if I wanted to see and old message,

However since I moved to eternal-september that practically does not work. My
previous news servers used to expire messages after a few months ... eternal-september seems to keep them for YEARS ... this means that, after &, it takes an awful lot of time for sorting.

That's exactly why I took the suggestion to go for a Maildrop approach.

Way more comfortable !

-Xavier
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2