Re: [Evolution] multiple pop accounts and legacy archive

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

On Sun, 2021-11-21 at 18:32 +0000, Peter Wurmsdobler wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to ask how to do the following with evolution:
>
> - All my emails received and sent over the past 25 years are stored as
> separate maildirs in `$HOME/Archive/Received` and `$HOME/Archive/Sent`,
> respectively. (Extracted from elm and mostly Thunderbird mbox files).
>
> - There are several POP accounts I pull receive emails from.
>
> Whenever I set up POP accounts now, all received/sent emails are
> swallowed by the "On This Computer" which I do _not_ want to see at
> all. 
Well, POP is a mail retrieval protocol. It retrieves your mail from a
remote server and puts it into the local mail account.  That is how POP
is supposed to work, and that is what Evolution does. Sorry if you
don't want to see that.


> Rather, I would like to see the following hierarchy in my left
> tab:
>
> - account_1 domain org
>    - Inbox
>    - Sent
>    - Draft
> - account_2 domain org
>    - Inbox
>    - Sent
>    - Draft
> - Archive (maildir)
>    - Inbox
>    - Sent

Help -> Contents -> Common Mail Questions and Problems
                    -> Separating POP mail for more than one account

Evolution does not use separate accounts for POP.

If you want to keep $HOME/Archive then you need to create a separate
account that points to that directory.

Edit -> Preferences -> Mail Accounts -> Add
    Identity -> fill in information it's not important what.
             -> untick  "Lookup mail server" at bottom

    Receiving Email -> Server Type: Maildir format mail directories
                    -> Mail Directory: select correct folder

    Receiving Options -> uncheck all if your aren't receiving into it

    Sending Email -> Server type: None

    Account summary -> Name: fill in suitable name

But in all honesty it looks like what you actually need is IMAP, not
POP.

> And I would like to be able to configure the following behaviour:
>
> - I would like to move some emails manually from the account's Inbox
> into my Archive/Inbox. emails of no interest I would delete there.
>
> - I would like all account's Sent emails to be archived into the common
> Archive/Sent maildir.

Edit -> Preferences -> Mail Accounts -> (Select account) 
         -> Edit -> Defaults -> Sent message folder

Do that for each account setting each to the same folder.

> This process should allow me to continue accumulating both sent and
> received emails in a single folder with only two maildir subfolder in
> my home directory. This makes:
>
> - backup very easy, e.g. to the cloud,
> - keep the mails independent of evolution.
>
> How would I go about achieving that?

Really, the easiest way of achieving that is using IMAP - everything
will be kept on the server and they are absolutely independent of
Evolution. 

P.