newsbin.com

Dear Support,

Apologies upfront if this topic has already been addressed in a FAQ or other, I have just been having a hard time finding an answer . My question is:

Within newsbin, how can I view the history of what I have downloaded so far? I am referring to downloads since installation of newsbin. The existence of Downloads.db3 is known, and it is readable in notepad (albeit garbled). But it would be great to have a viewable list within newsbin and check items for re-download.

Hope I am making any sense.

Best regards

To my knowledge the only long term record of everything you've downloaded would be in the signature.db3 file, only if you've enabled signature match. Even then, this is absolutely not a fully detailed listing of files like you would get with a post list, it stores just enough information to help you avoid re-downloading the same file inadvertently.

I end up deleting this file every once and a while because it can get unwieldy and gets scanned with every download, so you can imagine the massive size a full up record of everything you snag can get.

The downloads.db3 file you mentioned isn't used to keep a full record, it's mostly a place to hold downloads in progress between newsbin sessions.

I don't know if there's enough demand for something like this since you wouldn't just be making a massive file, but you'd be adding a significant hit to every single download you do, with the injection of data into a database. A lot of users don't want records being kept of their downloads, to boot. If you use nzb files, you could get into the habit of using the auto download folder, since those files end up getting stored after being added to the queue, but no, there's currently no method to maintain records of every last thing.

DT

At one point the signature.db3 file did have this information in a usable format. However there were so many complaints about the privacy risk around keeping a full history of downloads that the information was removed. Signature.db3 now only has the signatures in a format that cannot identify the original file that generated them.

DT and Itimpi, many thanks for your insights and clarifications. The matter has been answered and the thread can be closed.

Take care,
Kano

In all of my download folders, there is a file called descript.ion that has the complete subject line, group, and date of every file downloaded. If you don't have it, there must be a switch somewhere you can turn on, because it's been available for years.

Yeah exactly, there's a switch in the options for this. "File Descriptions".

I have related question....

Yesterday I had a 1TB drive die. I have a list of all the files on it (or I think I can generate a list based on a file search program I've been running). Is there a way to delete items from the signature.db3 using just the filename? That way I could just nuke them and redownload only the stuff that I don't have elsewhere. I'm pretty sure based on what I've read that the signature.db3 does NOT contain filenames.

The hard drive had over 700,000 files. I'm pretty sure there were over 400,000 in pics downloaded from usenet.

PS. I think I'll hook the dead drive to a USB interface and put it in the freezer and see if I can get it to read...

Sadly, there are no filenames in the signature.db3 or any mechanism to match filenames to file.