Organizing and Managing your Email
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, Ximian Evolution has the tools
to help you do it.
Importing Your Old Email and SettingsEvolution allows you to import old
email and data so that you don't need to worry about losing your
old information.
Importing Email and Other DataXimian Evolution can import the
following types of files:
VCard (.vcf, gcrd):
The addressbook format used by the GNOME, KDE, and
many other contact management applications. You
should be able to export to VCard format from any
address book application.
iCalendar (.ics):
A format for storing calendar files. iCalendar is used by
PalmOS based handhelds, Ximian
Evolution, and Microsoft
Outlook.
Microsoft Outlook Express 4 (.mbx):
Email file format used by Microsoft Outlook Express
4. For other versions of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, see
the workaround described in the note below.
LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF):
A standard data format for address book cards.
MBox (mbox):
The email box format used by Mozilla, Netscape,
Ximian Evolution, Eudora, and many other email clients.
To import your old email:
Click FileImport.
Click Next after reading the Welcome screen.
Select Import a single file.
Find the file that you wish to import into Evolution.
Click ImportImporting PreferencesEvolution can import all your old
mail, contacts, and other information from other applications,
making your transition to Evolution
easy.
To import your old information:
Click FileImport.
Click Next after reading the Welcome screen.
Select Import data and settings from older programs.
The left-most column shows the application which your
information will be imported from. You then select
checkboxes on each component to import different
properties of each application.
Click Next
Click ImportMicrosoft Outlook and Outlook Express Users
Microsoft Outlook, and versions of Outlook Express after
version 4, use proprietary formats that Ximian
Evolution cannot read or import. For contacts,
you may have to email them to yourself and import them that
way. For email, there is a simpler workaround:
While using Windows, import the files into Mozilla Mail (or
another mailer, such as Netscape or Eudora, that uses the
standard mbox format).
Copy the files to the system or partition you use for
Ximian Evolution.
Use the Ximian Evolution import
tool to import the files. There's more information about
why this works, and how, at the Ximian support website.
Netscape Users
Before importing mail from Netscape, make sure you select
FileCompact All
Folders. If you don't,
Ximian Evolution will import and undelete
the messages in your Trash folders.
Sorting Mail with Column Headers
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:
Right click on the column header
Click Add a Column
Click and drag a column you want into a space between
existing column headers. 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.
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.
Customize Current
View: Choose this
item to pick a more complex sort order for messages, or
to choose which columns of information about your
messages you wish to display
Column Sorting with the Follow Up Feature
One way to make sure you don't forget about a message is
with the Follow Up feature. To use it,
select one or more messages, and then right-click on one and select
Follow Up. A dialog box will open
and allow you to set the type of flag and the due date.
The Flag itself is the action you
want to remind yourself about. Several are provided for you, such as
Call, Forward, and
Reply, but you can enter your own note or
action if you wish. You may set a deadline date for the flag
as well, if you wish.
Once you have added a flag, you can mark it as complete or
remove it entirely by right-clicking on the message and
selecting Flag Completed or Clear
Flag.
When you read a flagged message, its flag status will be
displayed right at the top, before the message headers. An
overdue message might tell you Overdue: Call by April 07, 2003, 5:00 PM
Flags can help you organize your work in a number of ways. For
example, you might add a Flag Status column to your message
list and sort that way. Alternately, you could create a vFolder
that displays all your flagged messages, and clear the flags
when you're done, so the vFolder contains only messages with
upcoming deadlines.
Getting Organized with FoldersXimian Evolution keeps mail, as well as
address cards and calendars, in folders. You start out with a
few mail folders, such as 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.
Ximian 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
filed automatically.
Subfolders in IMAP
The INBOX folder on most IMAP servers cannot contain both
subfolders and messages. When you create additional folders
on your IMAP mail server, branch them from the root of the
IMAP account's folder, tree, not from INBOX. If you create
subfolders in your INBOX folder, you will lose the ability
to read messages that exist in your INBOX until you move the
folders out of the way.
Searching for Messages
Most mail clients can search through your messages for you,
but Ximian 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. Ximian 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 and execute it later. Just click Save
Search from the Search menu. Then,
you can run that search on any folder by selecting it from the
Search menu. You may also want to create a
vFolder instead; see for more detail.
When you're done with the search, go back to seeing all your
messages by choosing Show All from
the Search drop-down box, or enter a
blank search.
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 vFolders in the next few sections.
Create Rules to Automatically Organize Mail
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 quickly. Of
course, it's also faster and more flexible than an actual
person with a pile of envelopes.
Quick Filter Creation
There is an easy shortcut for fast filter or vFolder
creation. Right-click on the message in the message
list, and select one of the items under the
Create Rule from Message
submenu.
Making New Filters
To create a new filter:
Click
ToolsFilters
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.
Repeated Headers
If a message uses a header more than once, Evolution will
pay attention only to the first instance, even if the
message defines the header differently the second
time. For example, if a message declares the Resent-From:
header as "engineering@rupertcorp.com" and then restates
it as "marketing@rupertcorp.com," Evolution will filter as
though the second declaration had not occurred. To filter
on messages that use headers multiple times, use a regular
expression.
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 Ximian Evolution.
What if Multiple Filters Match One Message?
If you have several filters that match a single message,
they will all be applied to the message, in order, unless
one of the filters has the action Stop
Processing. If you use that action in a
filter, the messages that it affects will not be touched
by other filters.
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 -- perhaps you're
looking for messages less than two days old.
Date Received - 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 receive, 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 based on whether or not you
have an attachment in the email.
Mailing List - Filter based on the mailing list it came from.
How Does Filtering on Mailing Lists Work?
Filtering on mailing list actually looks for a
specific mailing-list header called the
X-BeenThere
header, used to identify mailing lists or other
redistributors of mail.
Expression - If you know your way around a
regex, or
regular expression, put your knowledge to use
here. This allows you to search for complex
patterns of letters, so that you can find, for
example, all words that start with a and ends with
m, and are between six and fifteen letters long,
or all messages that declare a particular header
twice. For information about how to use regular
expressions, check the manual page for the
grep command.
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
criteria 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, Ximian 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, Ximian 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 Ximian 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 action and repeat the previous step.
Press OK.
When Are Filters Applied?
If you use Ximian Connector to store your mail on an
Exchange server, filters are not applied until you open
your INBOX folder and select
ActionsApply
Filters or press
CtrlYUsing a Filter to Avoid Spam
Spam, also known as unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is
the bane of many people's Inboxes, but it doesn't have to
be. Using Ximian Evolution filters and an external Spam
detection tool like SpamAssassin (http://spamassassin.org/),
you can catch the vast majority of junk mail and drop it
directly into the trash.
The easiest way to do this is to get your system
administrator to install SpamAssassin (or its equivalent)
on your mail server. There, it will flag messages it
suspects of being Spam with the "X-Spam-Status" header to
your mail, which you can then search for in a
filter. Because SpamAssassin scores mails based on the
likelihood that messages are junk, you can even choose how
strict you want it to be. If you don't have a friendly
network administrator, never fear: you can install
SpamAssassin on your own system, then pipe messages through
it before reading them.
If your system administrator or ISP has SpamAssassin, here's how to siphon off the junk mail:
Select ToolsFilters.
Click Add.
Set the first part of your search criterion to look in a Specific header.
Enter X-Spam-Flag as the name of the header.
Choose contains at the second drop-down box.
Enter YES as the content to search for.
You're now working with all email that has the word "YES" in the
"X-Spam-Status" header.
For actions, choose what you'd like to do with the
messages. You can delete the messages automatically, but
it's more prudent to place them in a "Possible Junk Mail"
folder, and check them over just to make sure a genuine
message didn't get flagged by accident.
Click OK. You're done.
If you don't have SpamAssassin or other junk mail filtering
on your mail server, there's still hope, although it's not
quite as simple. First, download
and install SpamAssassin from http://spamassassin.org
You'll need to download the "spamassassin"
and "perl-Mail-SpamAssassin"
packages, and you can install them with Red Carpet by
selecting Install Local Packages
from the
File menu. Further instructions are at the
SpamAssassin web site. Once you have the software
installed, do the following:
Open a new create a text file with any text editor (
Programs
Accessories
Text Editor
is the most convenient) and paste in the following:
spamassassin -e
This will run the SpamAssassin command and report back 0
if the message is not junk.
Save the file as "spam-filter.sh"
Mark the file as an executable program:
Open your home directory in Nautilus, right-click on
spam-filter.sh there, and select
Properties. Then, click the
"Permissions" tab and check the box in the
Execute column and the
Owner row. Alternately, open a terminal
(
Programs
Accessories
Terminal
) and enter the command: chmod +x spam-filter.sh.
Back in Evolution, create a new filter: Select
ToolsFilters,
then click Add.
Select "Pipe Message to Shell Command" as the first portion of the criterion.
Enter "/home/username/spam-filter.sh" as the shell command, then select
"Does Not Return" and "0" as the remaining two
items. Substitute your username for "username" so that
Evolution can find the script.
For actions, choose what you'd like to do with the
messages. You can delete the messages automatically, but
it's more prudent to place them in a "Possible Junk Mail"
folder, and check them over just to make sure a genuine
message didn't get flagged by accident.
You're done. Click "OK" to close the filter and "OK" to
close the filter editor.
Editing Filters
To edit a filter:
Select
ToolsFilters
Select the filter in the Filter Rules section
and press Edit.
Change the desired settings.
Press OK in the filter editor window.
Press OK in the filter manager window.
Deleting Filters
To delete a filter:
Select
ToolsFilters
Select the filter and press Delete.
Changing Folder Names and Filters
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. So be sure to change
the filters that go with it.
Getting Really Organized with vFolders
If filters aren't flexible enough for you, or you find
yourself performing the same search again and again, consider
a vFolder. vFolders, or virtual folders, are an advanced way
of viewing your email messages within
Ximian Evolution. If you get a lot of
mail or often forget where you put messages, vFolders
can help you stay on top of things.
A vFolder 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 vFolder 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 vFolder criteria arrive or are
deleted, Ximian Evolution will
automatically place them in and remove them from the
vFolder contents list. When you delete a message, it gets
erased from the folder in which it actually exists, as well as
any vFolders 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. vFolders
make for better organization because they can accept
overlapping groups in a way that regular folders and filing
systems can't.
The "Unmatched" vFolder
The Unmatched vFolder is the mirror of all your other
vFolders: it displays whatever messages are not matched by
other vFolders.
If you use remote email storage like IMAP or Microsoft
Exchange, and have created vFolders to search through them,
the Unmatched vFolder will follow your lead, and search the
remote folders as well. If you do not create any vFolders that
search in remote mail stores, the Unmatched vFolder will not
search in them either.
Using Folders, Searches, and vFolders
To organize his mailbox, Jim sets up a virtual folder for emails from
his friend and co-worker Anna. He has another one for messages that
have ximian.com in the address and Ximian Evolution in the subject line, so he
can keep a record of what people from work send him about
evolution. If Anna sends him a message about
anything other than Ximian Evolution, it only shows up in the "Anna" folder.
When Anna sends him mail about the user interface for
evolution, he can see that message both in
the "Anna" vFolder and in the "Internal Evolution Discussion"
vFolder.
Creating vFolders
To create a vFolder:
ToolsVirtual Folder Editor
Click Add
Name your vFolder in the Rule name field.
Select your search criteria. For each criterion, you
must first select which of the following parts of the
message you want the search to examine:
Sender - The sender's address.
Recipients - The recipients of the message.
Subject - The subject line of the message.
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 vFolders in Ximian Evolution.
Date sent - Search 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 vFolder 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 -- perhaps you're
looking for messages less than two days old.
Date Received - 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.
Label - This works the same way as the Score
option, although it allows you to select from various labels applied to the message,
such as Important, Personal, To Do,
Work or Later.
Score - Emails have a standard priority range from -3 (least
important) to 3 (most important). You can have vFolders set the
priority of messages you receive, and then have other
vFolders
applied only to those messages which have a certain priority.
Size (kb) - Sorts based on the size of the message in kilobytes.
Status - Searches according to the status of a message, such as
'New'.
Attachments - Create a vFolder based on whether or not you have an
attachment in the email.
Mailing List - Search based on the mailing list it came from.
Source Account - Search 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 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.
With all local folders
With all active remote folders
With all local and active folders
Remote folders are considered active if you are connected to the
server; you must be connected to your mail server for the vFolder to
include any messages from that source.
Selecting a vFolder RuleCreating a vFolder Rule