I think I’ve just found out that Google Reader automatically deletes any unread items that are more than a month old. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything too important in those hundreds of unread posts, but I’m still a bit surprised. I’d quite like to think that if something has been ‘unread’, I would be able one day to read it.

2 comments

  1. Reader doesn’t actually delete old unread posts, it just marks them as read. If you show all items for a feed or a folder, you can scroll back to see even these old items.

    Mihai Parparita
    Google Reader Engineer

  2. gs

    I’ve noticed the same thing and it’s driving me crazy. What sort of use-case assumption is it to mark a post as read after it’s a month old? If I have kept a post as unread then I want it to stay unread unless I change it myself.

    What a ridiculous assumption made by the software engineers. I’m actually planning to use another reader now as this is unacceptable.

    And not to mention all the ads Google has started inserting!!