[Evolution] need advice on migrating from fetchmail/procmail/mutt system

[seberino spawar navy mil]

I am subscribed to a ton of mailing lists and get a constant
river of emails coming into my current fetchmail/procmail/mutt
MAILDIR system.

I want to move to Evolution talking IMAP to my remote mail
server now.  I'd like Evolution to put emails into **same**
MAILDIR directories as fetchmail/procmail currently does.

The problem is that I don't understand very well why/how
Evolution puts emails into folders.  I cannot just
"learn as I go" because I may lose emails in the learning
process!!!

Also, it appeared that Evolution was putting emails into
//different// non-MAILDIR directories there for a moment.

Because I use email constantly, I need to set up Evolution
immediately PERFECTLY which is not realistic!?!?

Any advice on a graceful way to ease the transition to
Evolution would be greatly appreciated.

Chris