# man > nngoback(1)

[_NNGOBACK_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NNGOBACK/1/markdown)                            General Commands Manual                           [_NNGOBACK_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NNGOBACK/1/markdown)

## 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nn/1/markdown) 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 ques‐
       tion.)  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 BACKACT DAEMON
       It is a prerequisite for the use of _nngoback_ that the script **back_act **is executed at  an  ap‐
       propriate  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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nn/1/markdown), [nncheck(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nncheck/1/markdown), [nngrab(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nngrab/1/markdown), [nngrep(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nngrep/1/markdown), [nnpost(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnpost/1/markdown), [nntidy(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nntidy/1/markdown)
       [nnadmin(1M)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnadmin/1M/markdown), [nnusage(1M)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnusage/1M/markdown), [nnmaster(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnmaster/8/markdown)

## NOTES
       **nngoback  **does  not check the age of the `old' active files; it will blindly believe that ac‐
       tive.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>

4th Berkeley Distribution                    Release 6.6                                 [_NNGOBACK_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NNGOBACK/1/markdown)