Re: GNUs group article counts

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

torys.anderson@gmail.com (Tory S. Anderson)
writes:

> I have done some massive expiry work on some
> of my groups, to where now an exhaustive list
> of messages shows something like 1100;
> however, when in group view and I tell it to
> enter the group, it is still telling me to
> choose up to 10x that number. I want to make
> sure I am clearing disc space and really
> optimizing things; how can I make the count
> correct, or do I need to do something more
> than expiration?

Well, first, it is Gnus, not "GNUs" (it is
a pun on "news" and GNU, I always thought).
There was a Gnus prior to Gnus, which was
called GNUS. Gnus was initially known as "ding"
(for "ding is not GNUS") but it didn't take.
All this obviously long before my time...

To try to answer your question, in the group
buffer, the number of *unread* articles in
a group should be indicated somewhere on the
line. Exactly where depends on you
`gnus-group-line-format' variable. You can
examine it and look for %N in the format
string. In the help, it says

    %N    Number of unread articles (integer)

Now, if you hit RET with point on a group, if
there are unread articles, those are what
you get.

But if there are no unread articles, then you
are prompted how many *old* articles to fetch,
as there is no such natural implication as it
is on the "unread" side of things!

And stop worrying about disc space.

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