Re: [Evolution] How to change send configuration from sendmail to smtp

[Milan Crha <mcrha redhat com>]

On Tue, 2018-03-13 at 21:16 +0100, ogio.spam wrote:
> Does it means that I will loose all the cache for all messages
> already in the old account?

        Hi,
the old account will still have it.

> And a new scan of the whole account after the reconfiguration?

But the new account not, thus it'll download the local cache again.

> I think this isn't a good idea.

There used to be possible to change the Receive and Send server types
in the mail account Properties, but it had been removed, to be
consistent with calendars and address books, where the main type of the
account also cannot be changed once saved. This "lock up" also helps
with local cache, because for example NNTP and IMAP+ do not use the
same cache format. It's also expected that people do not change those
types often, thus this redownload might not be a problem (it'll cleanup
the local cache as well). I can imagine it's not only about local
cache, but also about other folder-specific settings from download for
offline to message list layout, though even then there applies the idea
of not changing the server types often.

There is a manual way to do it, you can edit internal evolution files
and change the backend from "sendmail" to "smtp", then edit the account
in UI and set the SMTP settings properly. This is untested by me, but
you can try to go to:
   ~/.config/evolution/sources/
search the .source files for one which contains:
   [Mail Transport]
   BackendName=sendmail
and change it to be:
   [Mail Transport]
   BackendName=smtp
After you save this, open Evolution and there the Properties of the
mail account you just changed, to set SMTP settings as needed.

Again, this is untested and you'd be editing internal evolution files.
You should do that when all evolution processes are not running ideally
(ps ax | grep evolution), which can be a challenge, at least under
GNOME (which keeps restarting evolution-calendar-factory).
        Bye,
        Milan