# 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

Evolution allows you to import old email and contacts so that you don't need to worry about losing your old information.

### Importing Single Files

Ximian Evolution can import the following types of files:

VCard (.vcf, gcrd):

- The address book 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 contact cards.

MBox (mbox):

- The email box format used by Mozilla, Netscape, Ximian Evolution, Eudora, and many other email clients.

To import your old email:

1. Click File Import.

2. Click Forward after reading the welcome screen.

3. Select Import a single file and click Forward.

4. Indicate the file that you wish to import into Evolution and click Forward.

5. Click Import

### Importing Multiple Files

Evolution automates the import process for several applications it can recognize.

To import your old information:

1. Click File Import.

2. Click Forward after reading the welcome screen.

3. Select Import data and settings from older programs and click Forward.

4. Evolution will search for old mail programs it recognizes and, if possible, import data from them.

#### Microsoft 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:

1. While using Windows, import the files into Mozilla Mail (or another mailer, such as Netscape or Eudora, that uses the standard mbox format).

2. Copy the files to the system or partition you use for Ximian Evolution.

3. 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

Mozilla and Netscape users will need to choose File Compact All Folders from within Netscape or Mozilla. Otherwise, Ximian Evolution will import and undelete the messages in Trash folders.

## Sorting Mail with Column Headers

The message list normally has columns to indicate whether a message has been read, whether it has attachments, how important it is, and the sender, date, and subject. You can change their order and remove them by dragging and dropping them.

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.

Unsort:

- Removes sorting from the message list.

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.

Add a Column:

- When you select this item, a dialog box appears, listing the possible columns. Drag the column you want into a space between existing column headers. A red arrow will show you where the column will be placed.

Best Fit:

- Automatically adjusts the widths of the columns for the most efficient use of space.

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.

If you prefer a simpler way to remind yourself about messages, you can mark them as "Important" by right-clicking on them and selecting Mark Important

## Getting Organized with Folders

Ximian Evolution, like most other mail systems, stores mail 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 right clicking on the folder list and selecting New Folder. Evolution will ask 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 than most, thanks to its automatic search index.

To start searching, enter a word or phrase in the text area right below the toolbar, and choose a search type:

Subject contains:

- This will show you messages where the search text is in the subject line. It will not search in the message body.

Subject does not contain:

- Finds messages that do not contain the search text in the subject.

Sender contains:

- Finds messages that do not contain the search text in the subject.

Recipients contain:

- Finds messages with the search text in the To: and Cc: headers.

Body contains:

- This will search only in message text, not the subject lines.

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.

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.

Message contains:

- Searches the message body and all headers for the entered text.

When you've entered your search phrase, press Enter or click the Find Now button. Evolution will show your search results in the message list.

For more complex search rules, select Advanced from the Search menu. You may want to create a vFolder instead; see usage-mail-organize-vfolders for more detail.

When you're done with the search, go back to seeing all your messages by clicking the Clear button, or by entering a blank search.

You'll see a similar approach to sorting messages when you create filters and vFolders in the next few sections.

## Stopping Junk Mail (Spam)

Evolution can check for junk mail for you. When the software detects mail that appears to be junk mail, it will flag it and hide it from your view. Messages that are flagged as junk mail are displayed only in the Junk folder.

The junk mail filter can "learn" which kinds of mail are legitimate and which are not if you train it. When you first start using junk mail blocking, check the Junk folder to be sure that legitimate mail doesn't get flagged as junk mail. If good mail, also known as "ham," is mis-flagged, remove it from the Junk folder by right-clicking on it and selecting Mark as Not Junk. If Evolution misses junk mail, right-click it and select Mark as Junk. When you correct it, the filter will be able to recognize similar messages in the future, and will become more accurate as time goes on.

To change your junk mail filtering preferences, select Tools Settings and click the Mail Preferences button. In the mail preferences tool, select the Junk tab. Here, you have several options:

Check Incoming Mail

- This option turns automatic junk mail filtering on or off.

Do Not Check Incoming Mail for IMAP Accounts

- Evolution must download mail to determine whether it is junk mail, so junk mail filtering can slow IMAP performance as it downloads every message in its entirity. To turn filtering off for IMAP mail, but leave it on for other mail accounts, select this box.

Local Tests Only

- This option skips tests that require a network connection, such as checking to see if a message is in a list of known junk messages, or if the sender or gateway are blacklisted by anti-spam organizations. Selecting this option will increase the speed of operation, but may decrease accuracy.

Use Daemon

- If you select this option, Evolution will try to use the mail filtering daemon `spamd` if it is available. Using the daemon can improve filtering speed, but the daemon must already be running. Starting a daemon normally requires root privileges, but you may be able to use it as non-root, depending on your OS and configuration.

  You can can start spamd with the command `/etc/init.d/spamd start`, or if you prefer, have it started automatically by editing your system services (for SUSE systems, this is the "Runlevel Editor" in YAST). More traditional UNIX users, of course, know how to put links to the initialization script in the `/etc/rc5.d/` or `/etc/rc3.d` directory.

## 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:

1. Select Tools Filters

2. Press the Add button.

3. Name your filter in the Rule name field.

4. Define the criteria for the filter in the If section. 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.

   - 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 - Set the message score to any whole number greater than 0. To use filters with scoring, use one filter to score a message, and then apply other filters only to messages with the scores you seek.

   - Label - Messages may have labels of Important, Work, Personal, To Do, or Later. You can set these labels with other filters or by hand.

   - Size (kB) - Sorts based on the size of the message in kilobytes.

   - Status - Filters according to the status of a message. Status may be Replied To, Draft, Important, Read, or Junk.

   - Flagged - Check whether the message is flagged for follow-up or not.

   - 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.

   - Regex Match - 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. This is most useful if you use multiple POP mail accounts.

   - Pipe Message to Shell Command - Evolution can use an external command to process a message, then process it based on the return value. Commands used in this way must return an integer. This is most commonly used to add an external junk mail filter.

   - Junk Test - Filter based on the results of the junk mail test.

5. Select the criterion for the condition. If you want multiple criteria for this filter, press Add criterion and repeat the previous step.

6. 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.

   - 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 - Assign the message a numeric score.

   - Adjust Score - Change the numeric score by the amount you set here.

   - Set Status - Set the status of the message. Status may be Replied To, Draft, Important, Read, or Junk.

   - Unset Status - If the message has a status value, set it to the opposite. If that status value is not set, do nothing.

   - Beep - Make the system beep.

   - Play Sound - Select a sound file, and Evolution will play it.

   - Shell Command - Run a shell command. No return value is expected.

   - Pipe Message to Shell Command - Send the message to a shell command. No return value is expected. This feature can be used to create automatic web postings from email messages or to perform additional message post-processing not supported by Evolution.

7. Set Status - If you want to add multiple actions for this filter, press Add action and repeat the previous step.

8. Click OK in the filter editor dialog.

9. Click OK in the filter manager window.

#### When Are Filters Applied?

For POP mail, filters are applied as messages are downloaded. For IMAP mail, filters are applied to new messages when you enter the INBOX folder. On Exchange servers, filters are not applied until you enter your INBOX folder and select Actions Apply Filters or press Ctrl Y. To force your filters to act on all messages in the folder, select the entire folder (Ctrl A) and then apply the filters (Ctrl Y.)

#### Creating a Mail Filter

Creating a Mail Filter

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.

When you first open the filters dialog, you are shown the list of filters sorted in the order in which they will be applied. You can move them up and down in the priority list by clicking the Up and Down buttons.

### Editing Filters

To edit a filter:

1. Select Tools Filters

2. Select the filter in the Filter Rules section and press Edit.

3. Change the desired settings.

4. Press OK in the filter editor window.

5. Press OK in the filter manager window.

### Deleting Filters

To delete a filter:

1. Select Tools Filters

2. Select the filter and press Remove.

3. Click OK in the filter manager window.

#### 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, Evolution will automatically adjust the vFolder contents. When you delete a message, it gets erased from the folder in which it actually exists, as well as any vFolders that 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 opposite of the others: 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:

1. Tools Virtual Folder Editor

2. Click Add.

3. Name your vFolder in the Rule name field.

4. 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:

   #### Selecting a vFolder Rule

   Creating a vFolder Rule

   - 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 - a numeric score that you can assign to messages using filters

   - Size (kB) - Sorts based on the size of the message in kilobytes.

   - Status - Searches according to the status of a message, such as 'Draft'.

   - Follow Up - Checks whether you have flagged the message for follow up.

   - 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.

5. Select the folders in which this vFolder will search. Your options are:

   - Specific folders only - Use individual folders for the vFolder to use as its sources.

   - With all local folders

   - With all active remote 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.

   - With all local and active remote folders