Start Evolution by selecting Evolution from your Programs menu, or by typing evolution at the command line. The first time you run the program, it will create a directory called evolution in your home directory, where it will keep all your Evolution-related files. At this point, it will also offer to import old messages from other mail clients, such as Netscape mail. After Evolution starts up, you will see the main window, with the Inbox open. On the left of the main window is the shortcut bar, with several buttons in it. Just underneath the title bar is a series of menus in the menu bar, and below that, the tool bar with buttons for different functions. The largest part of the main window is taken up by the content view, where your messages are displayed. Above that is the message list view, where a summary of your email is displayed. If you're running the program for the first time, you'll have one message: a welcome from Ximian. Evolution's most important job is to give you access to your information and help you use it quickly. One way it does that is through the shortcut bar, the column on the left hand side of the main window. The large buttons with names like Inbox and Contacts are the shortcuts, and you can select different groups of shortcuts by clicking the rectangular group buttons. Take a look at the Shortcut Bar The shortcut buttons in that category are: My Evolution Start your day here. My Evolution gives you a quick summary of new or important messages, daily appointments and urgent tasks. You can customize its appearance and content, and use it to access Evolution services. Inbox Click the Inbox button to start reading your mail. Your Inbox is also where you can access Evolution's tools to filter, sort, organize, and search your mail. Calendar The Calendar can store your appointments and To do lists for you. Connected to a network, you can use it to keep a group of people on schedule and up to date. Tasks A full-size view of your calendar's task pad. Contacts The Contact Manager holds your addresses, phone numbers, and contact information. Like calendar information, contact data can be synchronized with hand-held devices and shared over a network. The folder bar is a more comprehensive way to view the information you've stored with Evolution. It displays all your appointments, address cards, and email in a tree that's a lot like a file tree— it starts small at the top, and branches downwards. On most computers, there will be three or four folders at the base. First is the Local folder, which holds all the Evolution data that's stored on your computer. After that are Other Contacts, LDAP contact directories stored on a network, followed by any IMAP mail folders you may have available to you over your network. Lastly, there are Virtual Folders, discussed in , A typical Local folder contains the following folders: My Evolution, a quick summary to help you do your tasks. Calendar, for appointments and event listings. Contacts, for address cards. Drafts, for messages you started and didn't finish. Inbox, for incoming mail. Outbox, for messages you have written but not yet sent. This will be empty unless you use Evolution while offline. Sent, for sent mail. Trash, a virtual folder view of all the messages you have marked for deletion but not yet expunged. Note that once you have expunged a message, it is permanently deleted. You don't need the folder bar or the shortcut bar to move around the main window. You can use Tab to switch from one part of the window to another. When you hide the folder bar, there is a menu on the left side of the window just below the toolbar to move about the folder tree, even with the folder and shortcut bars hidden. If you get any serious amount of mail, you'll want more folders than just your Inbox. To create a new folder: Select File New Folder Shift Ctrl E . Select the name of the folder in the Folder Name field. Select the folder type. The available options are. Calendar Contacts Mail Mail Storage My Evolution Tasks vTrash Select the folder for the new folder to go in. Evolution can also manage subfolders, subfolders are folders inside of folders. This works well if you want to try to separate your home folders from your work folders, or if you like to keep very organized. Calendars must go in calendar folders, mail in mail folders, and contacts in contact folders. Right-clicking will bring up a menu for just about anything in GNOME, and Evolution is no exception. If you right-click on a folder, you'll have a menu with the following options: View, to view the folder. Open in New Window, to see it in a new Evolution window. Move, to move the folder to another location. Copy, to duplicate the folder. Delete, to delete the folder and all its contents. Rename, to change its name. Create New Folder, to create another folder in the same location. Add to Shortcut Bar, to add the folder to your shortcut bar. Properties, to view or change the folder properties. You can also rearrange folders and messages by dragging and dropping them. Any time new information arrives in a mail folder, that folder label is displayed in bold text, along with the number of new messages in that folder inside of paranthesis. The menu bar's contents will always provide all the possible actions for any given view of your data. That means that, depending on the context, menu bar items will change. If you're looking at your Inbox, most of the menu items will relate to mail; some will relate to other components of Evolution and some, especially those in the File Menu will relate to the application as a whole. The contents of the menu bar are described in . File Anything even related to a file or to the operations of the application generally falls under this menu: creating things, saving them to disk, printing them, and quitting the program itself. Edit The Edit menu holds useful tools that help you edit text and move it around. View This menu lets you decide how Evolution should look. Some of the features control the appearance of Evolution as a whole, and others the way a particular kind of information appears. Actions Holds actions which maybe applied to a message. Normally, if there is only one target for the action — for example, replying to a message — you can find it in the Actions menu. Tools Tools for configuring, changing, and setting up preferences go here. For mail, that means things like Mail Configuration and the Virtual Folder Editor. For the Calendar and the Contact Manager, it's color, network, and layout configuration. Help Select among these items to open the Help Browser and read the Evolution manual. Once you've familiarized yourself with the main window you can start doing things with it. We'll start with your executive summary. When you first start Evolution, you are presented with a first time druid. The druid will help you get your email preferences configured and import your email from your other program. The first screen welcomes you to the druid. It is estimated that configuring your mail will take 2 to 5 minutes and importing mail will take 1 to 2 minutes. The Identity window is the first of four steps in the druid. The identity step lets you configure your basic, personal information. Full Name — Your full name (Example: John Doe). Email Address — Your email address (Example: john@doe.com) Organization — The company you work for (optional). Signature file — You can setup Evolution to put text at the end of all your emails. This is the file which that text is located in. The Recieving Email step lets you configure receving email people have sent you. Server Type — There are numerous types of servers which Evolution can download your email from: POP — Downloads your email to your hard disk for permanent storage. IMAPv4 — Keeps the email on your server so you can access your email from any computer that supports IMAPv4 and have everything be the same. Unix mbox spool-format file — Bad description, we're getting a better definition shortly. Standard Unix mailbox file — Bad description, we're getting a better definition shortly. Qmail maildir format files — If you download your mail using qmail, you'll want to use this. None &mdash How do you have None? figure out! Email Server — This is the address of the server you're downloading from. Username — The username that you login to your email. That is often the part before the @ in your email. Authentication Type — Chances are you are using Password. Ask your administrator for more details. You can have Evolution check by clicking Check for supported types. Remember Password — If you prefer to not enter your password everytime you check email, press this button. The Sending Email step lets you configure sending email. Server Type — There are numerous server types that Evolution supports for sending your mail. SMTP — Downloads mail into your mailbox file. Sendmail — Uses another program to download your mail to your mailbox files. Host — The server to connect to that sends your mail. Server requires authentication — Check if you need a password to send mail. Authentication Type — Chances are you are using Password. Ask your administrator for more details. You can have Evolution check by clicking Check for supported types. Username — The username that you login to your email. That is often the part before the @ in your email. Remember Password — If you prefer to not enter your password everytime you check email, press this button. Chances are, Evolution isn't your first email program. You're probably switching from another program and will want access to your email from your old program. It's for exactly these situations that Evolution includes an import feature. Evolution can import the following types of files: VCard (.vcf, gcrd) - Contacts Outlook Express 4 (.mbx) - Email MBox(mbox) - Email VCard is a format to store addressbooks and contact information. Outlook handles your email. If you're coming from Windows, you're probably going to be importing Outlook Express files. If you're coming from a Unix program, you're probably using mbox. Ask your system administrator if you aren't sure which you use. Eudora email client uses mbox format to store mail. So if you're coming from Eudora, you'll want to select mbox. Outlook 2000 uses a format which Evolution cannot directly import. However, you can import it using Mozilla on Windows. Please see the FAQ for more information. To import your files, go to File Import File An assistant will appear, helping you to import your files. You'll need to specify where the file is that you want to import. Click Next and then Import. Evolution will present you with the Folder dialoge, so you can specify where your new messages will go. Select the desired folder, and your file will be imported into Evolution. And if you're timid about using Evolution, don't worry. Evolution won't mangle your files, so if you choose to use your old application instead, you can import your files right back in.