---
name: "nngoback"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "nn"
version: "6.7.3-16"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/nngoback"
---

# nngoback(1)

make news articles unread on a day-by-day basis (nn)

## NAME

nngoback - make news articles unread on a day-by-day basis (nn)

## SYNOPSIS

**nngoback** \[ -**NQvi** \] \[-**d**\] *days* \[ *group* \]...

## DESCRIPTION

*nngoback* will rewind the .newsrc record file of [**nn**(1)](/nn/1.md) one or more *days*. It can be used to rewind all groups, or only a specified set of *groups*. In other words, *nngoback* can mark news articles which have arrived on the system during the last *days* days unread.

Only *subscribed* groups that occur in the current presentation sequence are rewound.  That means that if no *group* arguments are specified, all groups occurring in the sequence defined in the *init* file will be rewound.  Otherwise, only the groups specified on the argument line will be rewound.

When a group is rewound, the information about selections, partially read digests etc. are discarded.  It will print notifications about this unless the -**Q** (quiet) option is used.

If the -**i** (interactive) option is specified, *nngoback* will report for each how many articles *can be* marked unread, and ask for confirmation before going back in that group.

If the -**v** (verbose) option is specified, *nngoback* will report how many articles are marked unread.

If the -**N** (no-update) option is specified, *nngoback* will perform the entire goback operation, but not update the .newsrc file.

If you are not up-to-date with your news reading, you can also use **nngoback** to catch up to only have the last few days of news waiting to be read in the following way:\
\
 	nn -a0\
\
 	nngoback 3\
 The **nn** command will mark all articles in all groups as read (answer *all* to the catch-up question.)  The following **nngoback** will then make the last three days of news unread again.

Examples:

- nngoback 0

  Mark the articles which have arrived today as unread.

- nngoback 1

  Mark the articles which have arrived yesterday and today as unread.

- nngoback 6

  Mark the articles which have arrived during the last week as unread.

You cannot go more than 14 days back with *nngoback*. (You can change this limit as described below.)

## THE BACK\_ACT DAEMON

It is a prerequisite for the use of *nngoback* that the script **back\_act** is executed at an appropriate time once (and only once) every day.  Preferably this is done by **cron** right before the bacth of news for \`today' is received.  **back\_act** will maintain copies of the active file for the last 14 days.

Optionally, the **back\_act** program accepts a single numerical argument specifying how many copies of the active file it should maintain.  This is useful if news is expired after 7 days, in which case keeping more than 7 days of active file copies is wasteful.

## FILES

\~/.newsrc	The record of read articles.\
 \~/.newsrc.goback	The original rc file before goback.\
 $db/active.*N*	The *N* days \`old' active file.\
 $master/back\_act	Script run by cron to maintain old active files.\

## SEE ALSO

[nn(1)](/nn/1.md), [nncheck(1)](/nncheck/1.md), [nngrab(1)](/nngrab/1.md), [nngrep(1)](/nngrep/1.md), [nnpost(1)](/nnpost/1.md), [nntidy(1)](/nntidy/1.md)\
 nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), [nnmaster(8)](/nnmaster/8.md)

## NOTES

**nngoback** does not check the age of the \`old' active files; it will blindly believe that active.0 was created today, and that active.7 is really seven days old!  Therefore, the *back\_act* script should be run once and only once every day for *nngoback* to work properly.

The days are counted relative to the time the active files were copied.

## AUTHOR

Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark\
 E-mail: storm@texas.dk