X-No-Archive

X-No-Archive is a newsgroup message header used to prevent a Usenet message from being archived in various servers, especially Google.

It was designed to follow the standard message header protocol used in existing newsgroups. In addition to the standard message header lines used in all newsgroup messages (including Path:, From:, Subject:, and Date:), news reader software includes the option for a user to add additional, optional headers to messages. These additional headers are prefixed with the label X- so that they will be ignored by news servers and newsreaders. Thus, the phrase "No Archive" was coined as a way to state "Do not archive this message," and the X- header was added to complete the term X-No-Archive.

The proper header for X-No-Archive is to insert the header into a message as follows:

X-No-Archive: Yes

Use of X-No-Archive began when DejaNews debuted in early 1995. DejaNews was the first large-scale, commercial attempt to archive the entire Usenet news feed (or at least a large part of it), and a number of regular newsgroup participants were concerned about privacy rights, as well as the possibility that their messages could be re-posted through DejaNews at some point in the future. DejaNews addressed by these concerns by acknowleding that it would not archive any Usenet messages containing the X-No-Archive header.

When DejaNews was purchased by Google, Google continued to honor the X-No-Archive protocol. Other newsgroup archiving services have also followed in DejaNews' footsteps, though the refusal to archive X-No-Archive messages has been entirely voluntary.

Many popular newsreader and posting software programs, such as Forte Agent, include a standard option to insert X-No-Archive headers into any or all messages at the user's request.