Un-ticking message not persistent in Gnus

Question

I'm using Gnus with offlineimap to connect to an IMAP server. I'm having issues with the tick mark ("!"). I can mark messages o.k. and when I come back they're still marked. The problem is, when I try to "untick" them (via the "@" key) they still come back marked when I come back to the group on a restart. Interestingly:

1. If I quit (using "q") from the inbox group and re-enter it, the messages are still unticked.
2. If I quit from the group and then from Gnus (using "q" twice), when I restart the messages are ticked again!

I wouldn't think this should have anything to do with offlineimap because I get the same behaviour even if it isn't running. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? (I'm a newbie to Gnus, for whatever it's worth!)

Answer 1

By hitting '@' you are toggling the mark for the gnus-agent, indicating you want to download the article. Based on the setup you describe, this is not what you want to do. You can use 'd' mark-as-read to indicate that the article is read. Reading the section Marking Articles in the Summary Buffer section of the gnus info pages may help clarify.

Answer 2

It looks like marking them read (C-M-k) does what I wanted it to do. I'll have to read up on the difference between the two commands.