Re: [Evolution] Re: local inbox vs. IMAP inbox

[lloyd <subscr001 twilight-systems com>]

Hi Steve -

> When I first 
> fired up evolution, it brought a bunch of messages into it's own local inbox 
> (the one that shows in the button panel along the left side).  In the folder 
> list, I see both sets of folders, ie, the (apparently) primary folders, and 
> the folders for my main IMAP account on the server. 

I recently did something similar (courier on local server).  I like
having all my mail in IMAP so I can use it from any client (e.g., when
an Evolution build breaks I can still use Mozilla :-))

It sounds like you may be using Evolution to fetch your mail.  I think
you might prefer using  fetchmail on the *server* to get your mail,
instead of having Evolution do it on your workstation.  Presumably your
server is up 24/7, so you can have fetchmail periodically check for
mail.  You still want to keep all your accounts defined in Evolution so
you can use them to send mail, but in mail settings you disable them so
that Evolution does not fetch the mail from those accounts.  The only
one you keep enabled is the local IMAP server account.

In addition, if you like, use maildrop or procmail to filter it to the
correct folders.  This is preferable to using a mail client's filtering
because, just like IMAP, it's centralzed and does not have to be set up
for each e-mail client.

Using fetchmail and (in my case) maildrop, when I start up Evolution
after coming home from work I have all my mail ready and waiting in the
proper folders.

Now, what I think would be *really* cool is a standard way of defining
mail accounts that all/most mail clients understand.  That way you could
store your mail account definitions on a server, and when you try new
mail clients you don't have to go through the drudgery of setting up a
bunch of accounts each time.  :-)