Even if you only get a few email messages a day, you probably want to sort and organize them. When you get a hundred a day and you want to refer to a message you received six weeks ago, you need to sort and organize them. Fortunately, Evolution has the tools to help you do it. By default, the message list has columns with the following headings: an envelope icon indicating whether you have read or replied to a message, an exclamation point indicating priority, and the From, Subject, and Date fields. You can change their order and remove them by dragging and dropping them. To add columns to sort by: Right click on the bar Click Add a Column Click and drag a column you want into the toolbar. A red arrow will show you where the column will be placed. Right-click on one of the column headers to get a list of options: Sort Ascending Sorts the messages top to bottom. Sort Descending Sorts the messages bottom to top. Group By this Field Groups messages instead of sorting them. (FIXME: Explain further) Remove this Column Remove this column from the display. You can also remove columns by dragging the header off the list and letting it drop. Field Chooser A list of column headers; just drag and drop them into place between two existing headers. A red arrow will appear to show you where you're about to put the column. Evolution keeps mail, as well as address cards and calendars, in folders. You start out with a few, like Inbox, Outbox, and Drafts, but you can create as many as you like. Create new folders by selecting New and then Folder from the File menu. Evolution will as you for the name and the type of the folder, and will provide you with a folder tree so you can pick where it goes. When you click OK, your new folder will appear in the folder view. You can then put messages in it by dragging and dropping them, or by using the Move button in the toolbar. If you want to move several messages at once, click on the ones you want to move while holding down the CTRL key, or use Shift to select a range of messages. If you create a filter with the filter assistant, you can have mail moved to your folder automatically. Most mail clients can search through your messages for you, but Evolution does it faster. You can search through just the message subjects, just the message body, or both body and subject. To start searching, enter a word or phrase in the text area right below the toolbar, and choose a search type: Body or subject contains This will search message subjects and the messages themselves for the word or phrase you've entered in the search field. Body contains This will search only in message text, not the subject lines. Subject contains This will show you messages where the search text is in the subject line. It will not search in the message body. Body does not contain This finds every email message that does not have the search text in the message body. It will still show messages that have the search text in the subject line, if it is not also in the body. Subject does not contain This finds every mail whose subject does not contain the search text. When you've entered your search phrase, press Enter. Evolution will show your search results in the message list. If you think you'll want to return to a search again, you can save it as a virtual folder by selecting Store Search as Virtual Folder. When you're done with the search, go back to seeing all your messages by choosing Show All from the Search drop-down box. If you're sneaky, just enter a blank search: since every message has at least one space in it, you'll see every message in the folder. If you'd like to perform a more complex search, open the advanced search dialog by selecting Advanced... from the Search drop-down menu. Then, create your search criteria (each with the same options you saw in the regular search bar), and decide whether you want to find messages that match all of them, or messages that match even one. Then, click Search to go and find those messages. You'll see a similar approach to sorting messages when you create filters and virtual folders in the next few sections. Filters work very much like the mail room in a large company. Their purpose is to bundle, sort, and distribute mail to the various folders. In addition, you can have multiple filters performing multiple actions that may effect the same message in several ways. For example, your filters could put copies of one message into multiple folders, or keep a copy and send one to another person as well, and it can do that in under a second. Which is to say, it's faster and more flexible than an actual person with a pile of envelopes. To create a new filter: Click Tools Filters Press the Add button. Name your filter in the Rule name field. For each filter criterion, you must first select which of the following parts of the message you want the filter to examine: Sender - The sender's address. Recipients - The recipients of the message. Subject - The subject line of the message. Specific Header - The filter can look at any header you want, even obscure or custom ones. Enter the header name in the first text box, and put your search text in the second one. Message Body - Search in the actual text of the message. Expression - For programmers only: match a message according to an expression you write in the Scheme language, used to define filters in Evolution. Date sent - Filter messages according to the date on which they were sent: First, choose the conditions you want a message to meet — before a given time, after it, and so forth. Then, choose the time. The filter will compare the message's time-stamp to the system clock when the filter is run, or to a specific time and date you choose from a calendar. You can even have it look for messages within a range of time relative to the filter &mdash perhaps you're looking for messages less than two days old. Date Recieved - This works the same way as the Date Sent option, except that it compares the time you got the message with the dates you specify. Score - Emails have a standard priority range from -3 (least important) to 3 (most important). You can have filters set the priority of messages you recieve, and then have other filters applied only to those messages which have a certain priority. Size (kb) - Sorts based on the size of the message in kilobytes. Status - Filters according to the status of a message, such as 'New'. Attachments - Create a filter whether or not you have an attachment in the email. Mailing List - Filter based on the mailing list it came from. Regex Match - If you know your way around a regex, or regular expression, put your knowledge to use here. Source Account - Filter messages according the server you got them from. You can enter a URL or choose one from the drop-down list. This ability is only relevant if you use more than one mail source. Select the criterion for the condition. If you want multiple criterion for this filter, press Add criterion and repeat the previous step. Select the actions for the filter in the Then section. You can select any of the following options. Move to Folder - If you select this item, Evolution will put the messages into a folder you specify. Click the <click here to select a folder> button to select a folder. Copy to Folder - If you select this item, Evolution will put the messages into a folder you specify. Click the <click here to select a folder> button to select a folder. Forward to Address - Select this, enter an address, and the addressee will get a copy of the message. Delete - Marks the message for deletion. You can still get the message back, at least until you Expunge your mail yourself. Stop Processing - Select this if you want to tell all other filters to ignore this message, because whatever you've done with it so far is plenty. Assign Color - Select this item, and Evolution will mark the message with whatever color you please. Assign Score - If you know that all mail with "important" somewhere in the message body line is important, you can give it a high priority score. In a subsequent filter you can then arrange your messages by their priority score. Set Status - If you want to add multiple actions for this filter, press Add filter and repeat the previous step. Press OK. To edit a filter: Select Tools Filters Select the filter in the Filter Rules section and press Edit. Change the desired settings. Press OK. Press OK. To delete a filter: Select Tools Filters Select the filter and press Delete. Incoming email that your filters don't move goes into the Inbox; outgoing mail that they don't move ends up in the Sent folder. If filters aren't flexible enough for you, or you find yourself performing the same search again and again, consider a virtual folder. Virtual folders, or vFolders, are an advanced way of viewing your email messages within Evolution. If you get a lot of mail or often forget where you put messages, virtual folders can help you stay on top of things. A virtual folder is really a hybrid of all the other organizational tools: it looks like a folder, it acts like a search, and you set it up like a filter. In other words, while a conventional folder actually contains messages, a virtual folder is a view of messages that may be in several different folders. The messages it contains are determined on the fly using a set of criteria you choose in advance. As messages that meet the virtual folder criteria arrive or are deleted, Evolution will automatically place them in and remove them from the virtual folder contents list. When you delete a message, it gets erased from the folder in which it actually exists, as well as any virtual folders which display it. Imagine a business trying to keep track of mail from hundreds of vendors and clients, or a university with overlapping and changing groups of faculty, staff, administrators and students. The more mail you need to organize, the less you can afford the sort of confusion that stems from an organizational system that's not flexible enough. Virtual folders make for better organization because they can accept overlapping groups in a way that regular folders and filing systems can't. To organize my mail box, I set up a virtual folder for emails from my friend and co-worker Anna. I have another one for messages that have "ximian.com" in the address and "Evolution" in the subject line, so I can keep a record of what people from work send me about Evolution. If Anna sends me a message about anything other than Evolution, it only shows up in the "Anna" folder. When Anna sends me mail about the user interface for Evolution, I can see that message both in the "Anna" virtual folder and in the "Internal Evolution Discussion" virtual folder. To create a virtual folder: Tools Virtual Folder Editor Click Add Name your filter in the Rule name field. For each filter criterion, you must first select which of the following parts of the message you want the filter to examine: Sender - The sender's address. Recipients - The recipients of the message. Subject - The subject line of the message. Specific Header - The filter can look at any header you want, even obscure or custom ones. Enter the header name in the first text box, and put your search text in the second one. Message Body - Search in the actual text of the message. Expression - For programmers only: match a message according to an expression you write in the Scheme language, used to define filters in Evolution. Date sent - Filter messages according to the date on which they were sent: First, choose the conditions you want a message to meet — before a given time, after it, and so forth. Then, choose the time. The filter will compare the message's time-stamp to the system clock when the filter is run, or to a specific time and date you choose from a calendar. You can even have it look for messages within a range of time relative to the filter &mdash perhaps you're looking for messages less than two days old. Date Recieved - This works the same way as the Date Sent option, except that it compares the time you got the message with the dates you specify. Score - Emails have a standard priority range from -3 (least important) to 3 (most important). You can have filters set the priority of messages you recieve, and then have other filters applied only to those messages which have a certain priority. Size (kb) - Sorts based on the size of the message in kilobytes. Status - Filters according to the status of a message, such as 'New'. Attachments - Create a filter whether or not you have an attachment in the email. Mailing List - Filter based on the mailing list it came from. Regex Match - If you know your way around a regex, or regular expression, put your knowledge to use here. Source Account - Filter messages according the server you got them from. You can enter a URL or choose one from the drop-down list. This ability is only relevant if you use more than one mail source. Select the criterion for the condition. Select the folder sources. You can select: specific folders only If you select specific folders only, you need to specify the source folders in the box below. all local folders with all active remote folders with all local and active folders If you want multiple criterion for this filter, press Add criterion and repeat the previous step.

Creating a vFolder Rule

Obveously, not all messages will fit into all your vFolders. That is what the UNMATCHED vFolder is for. The UNMATCHED vFolder is a vFolder for any mail that doesn't get matched by other rules.