FAQ/About Us

Online since July 2009, our goal is to help make the huge amount of knowledge traded in public lists available in a very user-friendly format over the web. The actual archiving is done by a custom program called Newman.

This page is general: some feature documentation can be found on this page.

"How can I start archiving my list?"

List admins can simply add newman@archiveorange.com to their subscribers list, and archiving will start automatically. Old messages can be imported from MBOX-style archive files: please contact us to set this up.

"Will my list work here?"

Probably. Any list adhering to RFC 2369 will do. At the bare minimum, every message needs the List-Id header. ArchiveOrange obeys the X-No-Archive message header.

If RFC standards were followed by everyone, we probably wouldn't need this section. The vast majority of lists will work fine with this service, but some mailing list managers (MLMs) are better than others.

List Manager	Works with ArchiveOrange?	Thoughts
GNU Mailman	Yes	Good, and very popular. Conforms to most RFC standards, sends useful headers, has its own basic archiving capability, and you can manage your subscription from a simple web interface. Nevertheless includes a number of poor design decisions, including useless and insecure passwords, rewriting `Message-Id` headers, and particularly bad MBOX-like archiving.
ezmlm	Yes	Good. Subscriptions managed by commands sent by email (though an extension seems to exist for web administration, it is not included by default). Only works with the qmail MTA. Has the unhelpful habit of adding the `X-No-Archive` header to every message, rendering it meaningless. We ignore this header when it's coming from an ezmlm server.
mlmmj	Yes	Good. Similar to ezmlm, but compatible with more common MTAs.
Sympa	Yes	Good. Subscriptions managed by commands sent by email. Also adds `X-No-Archive` to every message by default.
Majordomo	Yes	Good. Subscription management is by commands sent by email, though there are web interface addons available with limited functionality.
SmartList	Yes	Good. Another solid MLM.
LISTSERV	Sometimes	It's old, and it's awful. Seems to be dying, thankfully. Does not conform to RFC 2369 or send headers making it possible to identify what it's doing. Users must send messages my email to manage subscriptions. Sometimes does not seem to require subscription confirmation. Has a strange affinity for uppercase letters.

"I am a list owner, and I would like to be removed from this service."

No problem. Contact us, and we'll get it sorted out.

"I accidentally posted some personal information to a mailing list and now it's here."

Our most popular request! Send us an email (orange@archiveorange.com) including the offending URL and we will get back to you shortly. Since we strive to maintain a complete record of the list activity, we won't remove entire threads except under exceptional circumstances. However, we respect your privacy and will always remove your personal information from them. In the future, you can opt out of archiving by configuring your mail client to set the X-No-Archive header.

"Your website is trying to sell me a Rolex."

We do our best to keep the spam under control but occasionally it creeps through. Use the "Report spam" button on the right side of the offending page and it will be dealt with.

"I have a feature suggestion."

We would love to hear about it! Send us an email at orange@archiveorange.com.

"Great work, I would like to send you a large sum of money."

We are showing some (hopefully relevant) ads to visitors referred by search engines. This allows us to cover our hosting and development costs while offering the best (ad-free) experience to regular users browsing the site or those referred from other places. If you are dead set on sending your money away, you can support us indirectly by donating to one of the open-source projects we're hugely dependent on. These would include:

Known Issues

Our web interface does not work brilliantly in older versions of Internet Explorer. We do not intend to fix this.

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