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3

Just noticed that 'Mark unread' link in the footer of each item in Google Reader disappeared.

Tried in different browsers, tried clearing the cache - didn't help. Pressing "M" button does nothing.

How do I get it back?

Here's the screenshot: alt text

Thanks!

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Cannot verify -- "Keep Unread" is available to me – Derek Oct 13 '09 at 23:49
When this was first posted I checked and my "keep unread" was gone. However, I just looked again and it is back :-) – Chris_K Oct 14 '09 at 3:22
This happens, it seems, randomly! – drozzy Jun 16 '10 at 13:04
Merge possible: webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/7378/… – random Jan 13 '11 at 3:52

migrated from superuser.com Jan 13 '11 at 3:53

6 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

I think this happens when you "mark all items as read". I hope you'll understand when I DON'T test this myself; I keep items unread all the time.

EDIT: It appears to also happen for really old content. I haven been able to keep up with some of my feeds, and Google Reader eventually decided to mark old items as read and prevented be from undoing it.

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This appears to be true. I've just tested it on one feed and after doing "Mark all as read" then showing all items, they do not have the "Mark as read" checkbox and the M key does not work. – Randy Orrison Oct 15 '09 at 11:27
You are right here, that's exactly it. Thanks! – Art Dec 8 '09 at 4:30
up vote 5 down vote

This happens for two reasons:

  1. When you click "Mark all as read" button, all feeds mark read at that point cannot be marked unread anymore.
  2. For any items older than precisely one month. Today is June 16th, and I cannot mark "unread" any of the items on or before May16h.

I am not sure what the reason behind this is, but I think it might have something to do with Google storing/caching all the feeds and so they don't want to store more than 1-month worth of them? This is strange, considering that one can still scroll all the way back in history, or query Google Reader for old-feeds (for example using Google Reader api).

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up vote 3 down vote

I am seeing "Keep Unread" in the footer of Google Reader here, in all browsers.

Google Reader

Try pressing M when you're on an article and see if anything happens (that should toggle the "keep unread" feature).

Can you provide a screenshot?

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m toggles mark read/mark unread – Anthony Cramp Oct 14 '09 at 1:09
up vote 3 down vote

For the record, it's possible to undo the "mark all as read" action – somewhat unintuitively – by marking only items older than a day/week/two weeks as read:

http://www.technixupdate.com/undo-mark-all-as-read-in-google-reader/

This restores the "keep unread" option!

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this solves it. – hIpPy Jul 3 '11 at 7:26
up vote 0 down vote

In Google Reader，after subscribe a site，the keep unread is disappear. But if click “all items”，you can see "keep unread" again. maybe this is google reader's bug.

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up vote -1 down vote

Try to use a mobile device and access Google Reader trough m.google.com/reader . Mark the desired items as stared to access them much easy and there you will have the keep unread feature. Also you can try to revert to the old user interface somehow (for example by disabling javascript in the browser).

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Not what the OP asked. – Vidar S. Ramdal Nov 6 '12 at 14:36

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