I am trying to move my Evolution data (settings/configuration, folders, and mail) to a new computer. I am currently running Suse Linux Professional 9.2 on a Dell Latitude D800 and Evolution 2.0.1. So far, I have not been successful and I must say I really wish the Evolution developers would provide an export/backup utility that would simplify moving an Evolution client from one computer to another. At any rate, here is what I have tried.

I searched the Novell knowledgebase and found these instructions, which I have already followed:


How to move Evolution 2.0 to a new computer - TID10095920 (last modified 17DEC2004)
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How to move Evolution 2.0 to a new computer
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Novell Evolution 2.0
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To move Novell Evolution to a new computer you must have all files from the ~/.evolution and ~/.gconf/apps/evolution directories. Perform the following steps to assure Evolution is shut down properly.

At your "old" computer:

At a terminal window run the following commands:

evolution --force-shutdown

cd ~

tar -cvzf evolution.tar.gz evolution .gconf/apps/evolution

This will ensure that Evolution is shut down and that the two directories are archived together in one tar file. Move this file to your new computer.

At your "new" computer, place the TAR file from the above operation into your home directory.

From a terminal window perform the following commands

evolution --force-shutdown

gconftool-2 --shutdown

cd ~

tar -xvzf evolution.tar.gz

Start Evolution and all of your mail and settings should be intact.

Document Title: How to move Evolution 2.0 to a new computer
Document ID: 10095920
Solution ID: NOVL100268
Creation Date: 16DEC2004
Modified Date: 17DEC2004
Novell Product Class:


These instructions seem to have worked, because when I launched Evolution, my mail accounts were all configured correctly and there were messages in my mailbox. However, still, I cannot see any of my personal folders.

If anyone has a helpful suggestion about how I might view/recover/discover my personal folders, I would greatly appreciate it.

With older versions of Evolution before 2.0.. I'd simply just copy the evolution folder in my users home directory over. When you then fire up evolution for the first time on the new computer, it'll take you thru the steps of the account you want to setup, once your done and it launches after putting in the same identical setup, it should read the evolution directory and contents.

Might work, at least worth a shot..

trickykid,
I tried just moving the Evolution directory first, before I tried the Novell solution outlined above. However, that didn't work either. I think there must be some configuration setting that is missing, because the mail/account settings are there in my new instance of Evolution on my new laptop, but my personal folders are missing.

I'm still hoping someone else has had this problem and solved it.
Thanks for the info.
E

OK. So here's what I did. I got these instructions from the How to restore Evolution thread.

Migrating email from Evolution 1.4 to 2.0 (FC3):
This took a while to figure out, but this post is the essence of it:
http://lists.ximian.com/archives/pu...ber/039343.html

* Shutdown any running evolution processes.
$ evolution-2.0 --force-shutdown
* Edit the GConf keys /apps/evolution/version and last_version to read
"1.4.0". You can use gconf-editor or the command line interface:
$ gconftool-2 --set /apps/evolution/version --type string "1.4.0"
$ gconftool-2 --set /apps/evolution/last_version --type string "1.4.0"
* Remove (do you have a backup?) or rename (as shown) the new hidden
~/.evolution directory:
$ mv ~/.evolution ~/old-evolution-2.0.0
* Then run Evolution 2.0.0 and it should migrate your 1.4.x data again.
Lean back and have a good cup of coffee, beer, whatever... :-)
Reset both GConf keys to "2.0.0", if not already done. AFAIK
last_version will not be reset.

All of this is way too painful. I don't mind so much, since I am fairly comfortable now in Linux and I like command line tools just fine; however, we really need to move beyond this if we're going to spread to large number of desktops in the world.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone out there.
Best of Luck!
E