Deleting group messages in Thunderbird

I have recently started using Thunderbird to real this newsgroup. Can anyone tell me how to delete messages in one go, the delete button seems to only deletes one message from each highlighted thread.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike
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Depends a little on exactly what you are trying to do. Ignore Thread will prevent a thread showing - useful for the endless off-topic discussions about immigrants.

Alternatively Show threads with unread will hide all threads except those with unread messages. Then right-click the newsgroup and select mark all as read when you have finished.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew May

In essence, you can't "delete" a message in a newsgroup, as you have no control of what's on the news server. If you "delete" it, you are just hiding it from view.

What I think you want to do is to refresh the list of news messages which have built up over time. With Outlook Express, you could do this to all NGs at once, but as far as I know TB allows you to do this to only one NG at a time. Just right-click on the NG and select "Properties". Then click on "Repair Folder". This will leave the newsgroup empty of messages. When the "Download Headers" box appears, just download what you want to. You will get all the recent messages, including those you have read. If you want to expand the threads, use Shift-8.

Reply to
Jeff Layman

Okay I'll be more specific.

I want to delete from my screen those I have read or don't want to read. Currently I highlight all messages on the screen and hit the on-screen delete button. This deletes from my screen all threads with a single message but leaves those with multiple messages. If a thread has

20 messages I have to repeat 20 times even though I have left them collapsed.

With older email programs like Outlook express and Windows live mail simply highlighting the list and pressing delete either on-screen or on the keyboard deleted all messages read or not in every thread.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

On my ancient version CTRL-SHIFT-C marks all as read and K hides individual threads.

Reply to
Scott M

There may be better solutions, but the following works and is intuitive:-

  1. Uncollapse all threads by pressing \
  2. Highlight all messages to delete.
  3. Hit the delete key.
Reply to
GB

vieiw-threads->unread

or don't want to

right click mark as read.

Currently I highlight all messages on the screen and hit the

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Eh? Every newsreader I've used downloads the articles to your own HD. You can then do anything you want with them including deleting them.

Your newsreader keeps a note of what it's downloaded, so won't download an article you've deleted again.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Thanks for all the advice guys. Sadly nothing seems to work for me. No amount of right clicking or \ ing anywhere allows deleting of unopened, unread threads. I have now discovered that if I use the "Archive" option they will delete in bulk, but I then have to delete them from the Archive folder as well!

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

Very odd. I've only recently started using Thunderbird (38.7.2 currently) but that works exactly as Dave Plowman described and, as I mentioned earlier, messages are deleted from local folders when I delete them in TB - which I can do several threads at a time. But this is in Windows 10 :)

[Sets BIKINI to AMBER and retreats to bunker]
Reply to
Robin

Please run Dave Plowman's method by me again.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

I don't use Thunderbird for news so can't give you a method. I was replying to Jeff who seemed to think you wanted to delete things from the news server.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I can't tell you just what he does, only that it sounded like what I do. And I think he uses Pluto in any event. But what I do is in a few screen grabs at

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Reply to
Robin

(snip)

More or less. When anyone wants to delete something it generally means they don't want to see it again. That's what I assumed Muddymike wanted. Of course, your first post was essentially correct - once TB has downloaded a message to your HD and you delete it, it's gone. But, if you "Repair folder" as I mentioned, and download the headers again, that "deleted" message will be there again, and it will have to be deleted if you want it gone. And so on, every time you repair the folder.

Reply to
Jeff Layman

You can do similar in TB if you want, although its not the most obvious way to do it since it has quite rich controls for only looking at threads or messages with unread posts any way (plus a option to mark messages or threads as read).

However if you display the range of messages you want to delete, click the first, shift click the last, then right click and select "Delete Selected Messages" it will do what you want:

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Its a bit slow if you have a large news file though since it really does delete them.

I find it much simpler to simply turn on a view which displays threads with unread. You can then mark a thread as "read" if you want to get rid of it until something new turns up.

You can hit K to kill it forever. Of shift K to kill just a sub thread.

I use filters to do several of these things automatically. So you can have a wodney filter that automatically does a kill sub thread on him and any replies.

If you want a less brutal filter, then a "mark message as read" action will then cause TB to skip over it every time you advance to the next unread message (N on the keyboard)

Using a filter to mark any threads you have replied to as "watched" is also quite handy, since you can then set the view filter to "watched with unread". That immediately shows threads that may have replies to stuff you have posted in the past, which makes it easy to keep track of old conversations.

Reply to
John Rumm

That works on expanded threads, yes.

Highlighting a whole bunch of threads, marking as read, then delete seems the least clicking option. Thanks.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

Must admit to not bothering with this. My newsreader gives the option of expiring articles (deleting them) after n days (I've got it set at 14). Also gives the choice of making this all, or only those read.

As I say I'm not familiar with Thunderbird, but if it doesn't allow this have you looked for an 'add on' that gives this? Or one that makes it easier to do what you want?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Not sure you need to do both - either mark as read and leave them there, or just delete them.

(you could also set a short retention time if you want to get rid of old messages more quickly)

Reply to
John Rumm

Ah - right. So it does have that feature.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Go to Tools-> Account settings. Then select the usenet server on the left and expand out the sub entries if not already done. Click Synchronisation & Storage.

You can play with all the global retention settings.

If you want, when in the main windows, you can also right click on an individual group and select "Properties". That will let change the settings for just that group.

Reply to
John Rumm

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