SEPARATE is a very bad option. Many times I've wanted to remove it (and SINGLE, too - will you believe there are lists with a single notebook of 3-4M???). It introduces performance problems in many parts of LISTSERV which I am just not going to spend the time to address. I am not talking about minor glitches which people more patient than me will tolerate. I am talking about people asking me how the database functions can be disabled, because searches on the XYZ-L list take 5 minutes to complete on their 3090-class machine (because there are 4,000 individual files to open for a full text search). Others wanted to disable the 'INDEX listname' feature because the resulting file was too large on their SEPARATE list. Similarly, I had people ask me how to prevent GET of the huge notebooks :-) I don't want people to disable the database functions or remove 'INDEX listname' because they have one list which causes problems. SEPARATE is a legitimate option for digests or other lists where there is a posting a month or two. SINGLE is fine for a short-lived list, one created for 3 weeks to talk about something and then closed. But trying to use either option for one of its side-effects is something your are likely to regret a few years later :-) Eric