A few days ago I was looking for a guide to export my mail and settings (my accounts, address book, calendar, filters, etc.) to my laptop and I found a few guides. I wondered why, as far as I know, there is no way to export my data in Evolution (my favourite email client)… then I asked myself whether I should depend on those guides every time I need to move to another OS or computer. Ok, a script that automates the whole operation already exists but I wanted something more flexible and I found it somewhat absurd that I had to read a guide or use a script to export my data. I just wanted a GUI which could save me the time to find the script (my hard disk is a mess) or to find and read a guide (is it laziness or just lack of time?).

In the end I rolled up my sleeves and wrote a new application (in PyGTK) which will enable Evolution users to import and export (in a tar.gz file) their mail and settings in few mouse clicks.

My application seems to work well however I haven’t paid much attention to the details of its interface yet. All the writings you can see in the 2 screenshots below are provisional. I haven’t decided yet which name I’ll give it and I haven’t made the (GPL) code available yet, however I thought I would show you these screen shots:

I hope to release it soon and, as usual, constructive criticism is welcome.

EDIT: last night I found out that the next release of Evolution will have a new Backup/Restore feature therefore I’m glad to say that my application will become useless in GNOME 2.20. In the meantime you might want try my app.