Evolution: The Best Linux Email Client?

Thanks I will check this out.

I'm running Manjaro KDE and I just went to install Evolution but stopped. It wanted to install the entire gnome desktop as a dependency. I guess I have to stick with ThunderBird for now.

Of course mutt is the best)

Please do more detailed videos of Evolution. I use it but don't have a good grasp of what it's capable of. Thanks!

So far I have tried most of the e-mail clients and ending up with mailspring.
If you love mac like interface, open source software and tracking to see whether they opened your mail or not.

I prefer using Geary as it is similar to what I've grown accustomed to, Mail app on OSX.
It has issues like tray icon not showing up (I'm on Debian Buster), but the interface is pretty nice.

Evolution offers a plugin to seemlessly import Outlook archives.

Is it slow when launching does it send/receive email faster, thunderbird is slow, is there a windows version?

Thinking of using Evolution. How easy is it to back up and restore, especially when moving to a new install?

Thank you, Tom. I used to really like Evolution.

Does PGP encryption/signing work better with Evolution than Thunderbird?

@Toran I think you just move a folder or something like that. I have sorta the same question; Will Evolution import accounts directly from my .thunderbird dir? And since I'm using Thunderbird right now do I need to backup the entire .thunderbird folder or just a subfolder?

Best mail client by a long mile, the only one i have found that supports exchange.

Thanks for posting this video! I looked at Evolution many years ago and didn't care for it too much. I use Outlook daily at work and despise it. At home, I use Thunderbird and it works very well for me. The spam filtering is great (when the filter has been trained) and I love the ability to keep my accounts separate from each other. I use message filtering extensively and in my primary email account, I have over 250 mail filters, all sorting incoming mail in various ways. I would be interested in seeing more detailed Evolution videos as well, just to get more exposure to it.

And show cloud service integrations. (like exchange 365, or google cloud or whatever business used clouds)

Yes, I do the same thing. I use Evolution and Thunderbird. I use Evolution for things which are not sensitive and Thunderbird for encrypted emails by Enigmail which is basically a PGP plugin. Both work flawlessly.

Cool program never new how to set it up. Very helpful I love these kinds of videos

I use mutt as a catchall/backup style with it set to pop3 and to remove off my server after 30 days. I use either evolution or mutt depending on what computer I am on, most of my machines are terminal only so obviously mutt is my most used. I have those setup as imaps to sync read and unread.
I am looking into something else only cause evolution is starting to feel stale to me right now....been using it since well I ditched sylpheed years and years ago.
At my job I mainly use thunderbird so I am used to it and was thinking of going in that direction. I tried geary and well too web like and the icon only visuals where way too confusing.
But yeah I use evolution. It's good.

Thanks for the video. I am on KDE plasma and Thunderbird and evolution look so dated even with the best theming. Plus I just don't like the conversational threading in evolution. Mailspring has a nice modern interface but it has its flaws too. Geary is really nice too but has zero look and feel customization. Linux has always desperately needed a more modern email client. Unfortunately it will be webmail for me.

When trying to login to Gmail with Evolution I get an error from Google saying that Evolution doesn’t support the current authorization method that Gmail requires.
Thunderbird works just fine.

I would like to see Thunderbird configuration.

This is one of those rare occasions where I totally agree with a Linux video. Evolution is the best. I tried to install on Windows which seemed successful but never worked in the end.

wtf? We're supposed to be discussing Evolution, and suddenly we're discussing some bizarre webmail?!!! I'm out of here!

I hope there is nothing political in the name "evolution". I wouldn't want to see politics in the way of open source development.

or just use mutt

Evolution has been the best all-in-one solution for me - the calendar integration with gmail is terrible in Thunderbird, whereas in Evolution it uses the built in calendar. Having said that, I just use the browser with Office365 for work email, even on my phone - works a treat.

Ubuntu Mate 19.10 will come with this installed instead of Thunderbird.

Thanks I didn't realize that this existed, looks like a great replacement for MS Outlook :-)

Thanks for this video. I'm still trying to find an email client/PIM that I like. How do you feel about Kontact, and why do you like Evolution better?

Any special considerations for installing an AOL account on evolution? I successfully installed my gmail account but not my AOL account. Popup screen kept asking for my password inspite of it having been inputted. Am using Ubuntu Mate. CUrrently am using Thunderbird which installed AOL with no issues. thanks

I'm in the process of switching from Win7 to Mint (cinamon) I really am surprised at how poor the email clients are. I am used to Windows Live Mail which I love the look of and it works well for me. Evolution to me seems to be the best of a bad bunch. The screen appearance is very messy, I would like to have it display in a two line format the email title on the top line with the senders name on the lower of the two lines, the two column approach looks awful to me. The ability to have an 'all inbox' as well as the individual in boxes would be great. I tried to replicate the 'all inbox' in evolution but got multiple copies of the same email. A video on the layout and preferences would be great. Off to find another video now.

Did you make a part 2 for this? How to use Evolution / best practices?

Any opinion on KMail?

Thank you. This was very helpful.

i use evolution as mail clinet since i use gnome desktop ..

Thought I read it was really only good for Gnome desktops. I only want Evolution or Thunderbird for the calendar right now. Hoping tasks integrate well with their calendar, too. And, why do people say Thunderbird isn't okay for business use?

monkeys aren't people... soylent green is!

I used to use evo, but quit about a year ago, giving it another go now... it seems to have improved quite a bit!

2x playback is what most people will need to follow this knucklehead

I prefer it over Geary client, as for gmail, geary requires you to use less secure app access in google account, as it directly communicates over smtp. but evolution uses google's apis for authentication, it works great

I have both evolution and thunderbird. Thunderbird is a bit faster and more responsive. The search function on thunderbird is amazing.

Tried this. It looked good, but didn't work for me. It wouldn't accept any of my accounts or passwords, but then neither would Thunderbird or Geary either.

Hiri was my favorite client but it doesn't render properly with scaling anymore. What to switch to?

I tested out Evolution, and it has quite a few bugs and lacking in features:
You can't link alias emails to a signature.
There is no edit function for signatures after creating them.
When creating mail, the same signature appears on all the aliases. This defeats the whole purpose of using aliases in the first place.

So I took the weekend to figure out Thunderbird, and settled on the Beta, which is quite stable IMO. Now I have a temporary IMAP solution on Arch for traveling, and Thunderbird is mirroring everythng on the Apple Mail back home.

Please consider doing a deep dive on Thunderbird. The biggest complaint I hear is the old look, so could you cover theming, fine-tuning, explaining some of the settings that the docs don't cover?


Great channel as always.

Does it not have a dark mode?

Evolution does not seem to have an option to reply without including the original message. Am I correct?

Like many others here, I have simple email needs and humble expectations. Not having my gmail data wiped out is, I believe, a reasonable expectation. Being able to send and receive emails via pop, imap and gmail is a reasonable expectation too. Only one linux app does all that for me.

Mailspring was a disaster regarding gmail importation, resulting in massive directory structure damage (all files were repeatedly moved to the trash without my permission). Also I could not get Mailspring to sync with any of my imap accounts. Mailspring does not support POP. Deleted, but after the damage was already done.

BlueMail would not sync with my imap accounts despite repeated efforts... deleted after many attempts.

Kmail was finicky to setup, and it left lots of older pop emails on the server without downloading them. In order to receive any downloads, I spent a couple hours messing with Settings> Configure Kmail> Accounts> Receiving> Modify> Advanced> Connection settings> Encryption: none. After lots of screwing around with settings pop messaging began to work. Each pop account with the same ISP took lots of fidgeting to get it to activate.

Gmail messaging in Kmail was another story. I still have not gotten Kmail to receive a single gmail, though sending via gmail works fine. Every message being sent takes me to my web browser to authorize Akonadi with Google. Despite these limitations, I may continue using Kmail because it is easier on the eyes. I am hoping Kmail eventually improves.

By contrast, EVOLUTION had no problem linking any of my accounts, sending and receiving. It was the easiest of the bunch to setup. Evolution is not a pretty app but it works reliably with minimal screwing around following setup, and it doesn't mess up my gmail structure. I hope Evolution's UI improves someday, but I won't hold my breath on that.

Note #1: I tested email apps in KDE Neon, Manjaro KDE, and Linux Mint -- with the least use in LM.

Note #2: Mailspring would not run in Linux Mint via any means, which actually was a blessing. I hope others have better results with it than I did. Sometimes "free" is just not "free enough."

You rock man !