*-* On Fri, 08 Jan 2021, at 19:06:46 +1000,
*-* In Article <***@4ax.com>,
*-* RWC wrote
*-* About Re: Tip for Searching Usenet Messages
[ ... ]
Post by RWCBut, Ken, how do we, in Thunderbird, download 'old' messages going back 20+ years.
We don't. That 20 year (and more) figure that was previously
mentioned referred to Google Groups' archives. The maximum age of
posts that a newsreader can access is limited to the news server's
retention, and I don't know of any news server that has 20+ year
retention. Easynews (which I see you're using - indirectly) claims
4500+ days retention for both text and binary newsgroups. That's
about 12 1/2 years. Giganews claims 17+ years retention for text
newsgroups and Newsguy, which I use, has retention back to mid-2003,
which is about 17 1/2 years. OTOH free news servers such as aioe and
Eternal-September don't carry binary newsgroups, and have retention
that's measured in days or months. I've seen 160 days mentioned for
one of them.
Post by RWCRight now, I only have messages going back to Nov 2020.
The first time you open a newly subscribed newsgroup Thunderbird
displays a dialog box titled "Download headers". (This screen shot is
from Thunderbird 24.4.0. Yours might not look exactly the same.)
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Loading Image...
>
I don't remember what the default number is where that screen shot
shows 2000, but I think it's 500. As you see, it can be changed. If
you selected that option and didn't check the "Mark remaining headers
as read" box you can download more headers. If you checked that box I
don't think you can download any more headers.
If youi didn't check that box, go to
Tools --> Account Settings --> Account Name --> Server Settings
and select the number of headers you want to download. Click OK, go
to the File menu, and select the "Get Next nnnn News Messages", where
"nnnn" is the number you just selected in the Server Settings.
If you did check that "Mark remaining ..." box you could try the
same process, but I don't think it will work. If it doesn't work,
here's something I e-mailed to Steve in October, 2018, after he had
asked essentially the same question.
- - - Begin Quote - - -
Create a second account on your news server. Thunderbird won't
let you create multiple accounts using the same server name, but you
can use the server's IP address for the name in the second account.
Assuming that the server name for your current account is
news.newshosting.com, here's what the name portion of the account
settings would look like for both your current account and the new one.
Tools --> Account Settings --> [Account1 Name] --> Server Settings
Server Name: [_news.newshosting.com______] Port: etc.
Tools --> Account Settings --> [Account2 Name] --> Server Settings
Server Name: [_69.16.179.29______________] Port: etc.
If the server name for your current account is something
different let me know what it is and I can give you the corresponding
IP address if you don't know how to find it yourself.
Keep the current account for everyday use and use the new account
when you want to delve further back into groups' history, because the
new account won't have any of the history (posts replied to,
forwarded, flagged for future reference, etc.) you've developed in the
current account.
- - - End Quote - - -
Ken Whiton
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