wrote
Sue wrote:

Absolutely, it's just that I like to keep read messages for a few
days in this group as I've found it's often useful to refer back to
earlier parts of threads sometimes.

They're still there, you just need to tell your newsreader to show you
all messages as opposed to just unread ones and they will magically
reappear as long as they're on the news server still.

In general when you read newsgroups your newsreader only maintains
statistics locally on your computer. It uses these to 'remember'
which messages you already read in each newsgroup. When you reconnect
(if you have it set up the usual way) it shows you only messages you
haven't read before. When you 'delete' a message all you are doing is
saying you have read it so you don't see it again. It stays available
on the news server until such time it passes the new server's expiry
time which may vary from group to group but is usually (for text only
servers) in the sort of 3 to 30 days range.

Yep I know, but I prefer to delete the idiotic flooding headers from my
downloaded list rather than scrolling past and deleting everything after
reading (i.e. the option Mike was talking about) precisely so that, in
the 'all messages' view, I don't have an enormous local file of zillions
to scroll past to check on relevant threads.

For other OE users, another tip from that tomsterdam site was to make a
message rule for deleting old posts after x number of days, which is
useful housekeeping for the busier ngs if your server retains old
messages longer than you want.

--
Sue