This chapter, and , will provide you with an in-depth guide to the capabilities of Evolution as a mail client. For information about how to set up your mail account, see . If you chose IMAP mail during the setup process, you must subscribe to your mail folders before you can read mail in them. Read to find out how. Start the mail client by clicking on the Inbox icon in the shortcut bar, or by selecting a mail folder in the folder bar. To read a message, select it in the message list; if you'd like to see it in its own window, double-click on it or press Ctrl O . You can click the space bar to page down while you're reading an email, and press backspace to page up in an email. This may help to make reading your email faster. Evolution helps you work by letting you sort your email. To sort by sender, subject, or date, click on the bars with those labels at the top of the message list. The direction of the arrow next to the label indicates the direction of the sort, and if you click again, you'll sort them in reverse order. For example, click once on Date to sort messages by date from oldest to newest. Click again, and Evolution sorts the list from newest to oldest. You can also right-click on the message header bars to get a set of sorting options, and add or remove columns from the message list. You can find detailed instructions on how to customize your message display columns in . To look at the complete headers for email messages, select ViewMessage DisplayShow Full Headers. To see absolutely every bit, choose ViewMessage DisplayShow Email Source . You can also choose a threaded message view. Select View Threaded to turn the threaded view on or off. When you select this option, Evolution groups the replies to a message with the original, so you can follow the thread of a conversation from one message to the next.

Threaded Mail View

Once you've read your mail, you may want to get rid of it. To delete a message: Click the message to select it Press delete button or right click on the message and choose Delete. When you press Delete or click the trash button, your mail isn't actually deleted, but is marked for deletion. Your email is not gone until you have expunged it. When you "Expunge" a folder, you remove all the mail that you have marked for deletion. If you don't like this behavior, select ViewHide Deleted Messages. Then, you will only see deleted messages when you look in your Trash folder. Click Actions Expunge or press Ctrl E Both local and IMAP Trash folders are actually vFolders that display all messages you have marked for later deletion. For more information about vFolders, see . Since emptying your trash expunges the messages in your Trash folder, choosing Actions Empty Trash is the same as expunging deleted mail from all your folders. This is not, however, true for the Trash folder on Exchange servers, which behaves just the same as it would in Outlook. That is to say, the Trash folder on an Exchange server is a normal folder with actual messages in it. To undelete a message: Select a message you have marked for deletion. Press CtrlU or choose Edit Undelete If you have marked a message for deletion, undeleting it will unmark it, and the message will be removed from the Trash folder. However, it can't bring back messages that have been expunged. Now that you've had a look around the Inbox, it's time to check for new mail. Click Get Mail in the toolbar to check your mail. If you haven't entered any mail settings yet, the setup assistant will ask you for the information it needs to check your email. The assistant will give you several dialog boxes where you configure: your personal information your outgoing email server information your mail account identity name To check your email, press the Check Mail button. If this is your first time checking mail, or you haven't asked Evolution to store your password, you'll be prompted for the password. Enter your password and your email will be downloaded. If you get an error message instead of mail, you probably need to check your network settings. To learn how to do that, have a look at , or ask your system administrator. If you want to use Evolution and another email client, such as Mutt, at the same time, here's how: Download your mail in the other application as you would normally. In Evolution ToolsMail Settings, and pick the account you'd like to use to share mail. You may want to create a new account just for this source of mail. Under the Receiving Mail tab, select the type of mail file that your other mail application uses, and then enter the full path to that file. Click the OK button. If someone sends you an attachment, a file attached to an email, Evolution will display the file at the bottom of the message to which it's attached. Text, including HTML formatting and embedded images, will appear as part of the message, rather than at the end of the message as an attachment. If you get an attachment with an email message, Ximian Evolution can help you save it or open it with the appropriate applications. To save an attachment to disk: Click the downward pointing arrow on the attachment icon and select Save to Disk. Choose a location and name for the file. Click OK. To Open an Attachment in a Program: Open the mail message with the attachment you want to read. Click the arrow next the attachment icon. Select the program you'd like to use. It will start up and open the document. When someone sends you HTML mail that includes an image in the body of the message (for example, the welcome message in your Inbox when you first start Ximian Evolution) Evolution will display the image inside the message. You can create messages like this by using the InsertImage tool in the message composer. If the image isn't included in the message, but is, instead, a link to an image, Evolution can download the image from the Internet for you. However, Evolution will not display the image unless you ask it to. This is because remotely hosted images can be slow to load and display, and can even be used by spammers to track who reads their email. Having images not load automatically helps protect your privacy. If you want the images to load for one message, select View Message Display Load Images . If you want Ximian Evolution to load remotely hosted images more often, go to the Display tab of the Tools Mail Settings dialog. If you use an HTTP proxy, Evolution must be able to find it through the gnome-vfs subsystem before it can load images from the Internet. This is also the case if you wish to access weather and news information through the Summary tool. You can tell the GNOME Virtual File System about your HTTP proxy in one of two ways: Configure it with Nautilus Open a Nautilus window Select Preferences Edit Preferences . Go to the Navigation tab. Click the Use HTTP Proxy checkbox and enter the location of your HTTP proxy in the Location field. Configure it with the gconftool command Open a terminal. Enter the command gconftool --type=bool --set /system/gnome-vfs/use-http-proxy "TRUE" Enter the command gconftool --type=string --set /system/gnome-vfs/http-proxy-host "your-proxy-url" Enter the command gconftool --type=int --set /system/gnome-vfs/http-proxy-port "8080" For more information about the gconftool command, read the gconftool man page. You can start writing a new email message by selecting File New Mail Message, or by pressing the Compose button in the Inbox toolbar. When you do so, the New Message window will open, as shown in .

Evolution Main Window

Enter an address in the To: field. If you wish, enter a subject in the Subject:, and a message in the box at the bottom of the window. Once you have written your message, press Send. Evolution will normally send mail as soon as you click the Send button. However, there are a few ways you can save a message to be sent later: If you are offline, Evolution will add your messages to the Outbox queue. The next time you connect to the Internet and send or receive mail, that message will be sent. Choose File Save Draft to store your messages in the drafts folder for later revision. If you prefer to save your message as a text file, choose Save As and then choose a file name. Offline mode is a tool designed for use with a dialup connection or for laptop users who do not have a network connection at all times. It allows you to cache messages for reference while you are not connected to the network, and to compose messages and leave them in your Outbox to be sent the next time you connect to the network. Select FileWork Offline to have Ximian Evolution disconnect from the Internet while you work. When you want to reconnect, choose FileWork Online. Alternatively, you can click the connection button at the bottom left side of the window. If you use POP mail, all your messages will be available to you, because they are stored locally. If you use IMAP or Exchange mail, messages are stored remotely, so availability is a little different. Messages that you have read are cached and stored locally; all read messages will be available to you even if you are offline. Unread messages will be downloaded and saved for offline use if they are in a folder that you have marked as an Offline Folder. To mark a folder for offline use, select Settings Preferences and then click the Folders icon. In the Offline Folders tab, click the check-box next to the folders that you would like to use while you are offline. Then, when you select Go Offline, Evolution will fetch their contents and store them for later reference. In the next few sections, you'll see how Evolution handles advanced email features, including large recipient lists, attachments, and forwarding. To attach a file to your email: Push the attach button in the composer toolbar Select the file you want to attach Press OK You can drag a file from your desktop into the composer window to attach it as well. To hide the display of files you've attached to the message, select View Hide Attachments ; to show them again, choose Show Attachments. When you send the message, a copy of the attached file will go with it. Be aware that big attachments can take a long time to download. Evolution, like most email programs, recognizes three types of addressee: primary recipients, secondary recipients, and hidden ("blind") recipients. The simplest way to direct a message is to put the email address or addresses in the To: field, which denotes primary recipients. To send mail to more than one or two people, you can use the Cc: field. Hearkening back to the dark ages when people used typewriters and there were no copy machines, "Cc" stands for "Carbon Copy." Use it whenever you want to share a message you've written to someone else. Bcc: is a little more complex. You use it like Cc:, but people on the Bcc: list are hidden from the other recipients of the message. Use it to send mail to large groups of people, especially if they don't know each other or if privacy is a concern. If your Bcc: field is absent, click View Bcc Field . If you frequently write email to the same groups of people, you can create address lists in the Contact Manager, and then send them mail as though they had a single address. To learn how to do that, read . Evolution has the ability to let you specify the Reply-To in an email. Using this, you can setup a special Reply-To for an email. To do this: Open a composer window Open the Reply-To field by selecting View Reply To Enter the address you wish to have be the Reply-To address in the new Reply-To field. If you have created address cards in the contact manager, you can also enter nicknames or other portions of address data, and Evolution will offer a drop down list of possible address completions from your address book. If you enter a name or nickname that can go with more than one card, Evolution will open a dialog box to ask you which person you meant. Alternately, you can click on the To:, Cc:, or Bcc: buttons to get a list -- potentially a very long one -- of the email addresses in your contact manager. Select addresses and click on the arrows to move them into the appropriate address columns. For more information about using email together with the contact manager and the calendar, see and . To reply to a message, press the Reply: button while it is selected, or choose Reply to Sender: from the message's right-click menu. That will open the message composer. The To: and Subject: fields will already be filled, although you can alter them if you wish. In addition, the full text of the old message is inserted into the new message, either grey (for HTML display) or with the > character before each line (in plain text mode), to indicate that it's part of the previous message. People often intersperse their message with the quoted material as shown in .

Evolution Main Window

If you're reading a message with several recipients, you may wish to use Reply to All instead of Reply. If there are large numbers of people in the Cc: or To: fields, this can save substantial amounts of time. Susan sends an email to a client and sends copies to Tim and to an internal company mailing list of co-workers. If Tim wants to make a comment for all of them to read, he uses Reply to All, but if he just wants to tell Susan that he agrees with her, he uses Reply. Note that his reply will not reach anyone that Susan put on her Bcc list, since that list is not shared with anyone. If you're subscribed to a mailing list, and want your reply to go just to the list, rather than to the sender, choose Reply to List instead of Reply or Reply to All. Mailing Lists are one of the most popular tools for group collaboration on the Internet. Here's how they work: Someone sends a message to a single address, like evolution@ximian.com. That address belongs to a program that distributes the message to a list of recipients. The mail management program lets individuals subscribe to or unsubscribe from the list at will, without requiring the message writers to remember the addresses of every recipient. Mailing list servers can also let network administrators control mail flow, list membership, and even moderate the content of mailing lists. You are probably familiar with search and replace features in any sort of text-editing software, and if you come from a Linux or Unix background, you may know what Find Regex does. If you aren't among the lucky who already know, here's a quick rundown of the automated text searching features that the message composer makes available to you. Find: Enter a word or phrase, and Evolution will find it in your message. Find Regex: Find a regex, also called a regular expression, in your composer window. Find Again: Select this item to repeat the last search you performed. Replace: Find a word or phrase, and replace it with something else. For all of these menu items, you can choose whether or not to Search Backwards in the document from the point where your cursor is. For all but the regular expression search (which doesn't need it), you are offered a check box to determine whether the search is to be Case Sensitive when it determines a match. Normally, you can't set text styles or insert pictures in emails, which is why email is often regarded as uncommunicative and cold, and why people often resort to using far too many exclamation points to convey their feelings. However, most newer email programs can display images and text styles as well as basic alignment and paragraph formatting. They do this with HTML, just like web pages do. Some people do not have HTML-capable mail clients, or prefer not to receive HTML-enhanced mail because it is slower to download and display. Because some people may prefer not to get HTML mail, Evolution sends plain text unless you explicitly ask for HTML. You can change the format of an email message between plain text and HTML by choosing Format HTML. To send all your mail as HTML by default, set your mail format preferences in the mail configuration dialog. See for more information. HTML formatting tools are located in the toolbar just above the space where you'll actually compose the message, and they also appear in the Insert and Format menus. The icons in the toolbar are explained in tool-tips, which appear when you hold your mouse over the buttons. The buttons fall into four categories: Headers and lists: At the left edge of the toolbar, you can choose Normal for a default text style or Header 1 through Header 6 for varying sizes of header from large (1) to tiny (6). Other styles include preformat, to use the HTML tag for preformatted blocks of text, and three types of bullet points for the highly organized. Instead of using asterisks to mark a bulleted list, try the Bulleted List style from the style dropdown list. Evolution uses more attractive bullets and handles word wrap and multiple levels of indentation. Text style: Use these buttons to determine the way your letters look. If you have text selected, the style will apply to the selected text. If you do not have text selected, the style will apply to whatever you type next. The buttons are: Push B for bold text Push I for italics Push U to underline Push S for a strikethrough. Alignment: Located next to the text style buttons, these three paragraph icons should be familiar to users of most word processing software. The leftmost button will make your text aligned to the left, the center button, centered, and the right hand button, aligned on the right side. Indentation rules: The button with the arrow pointing left will reduce a paragraph's indentation, and the right arrow will increase its indentation. Color Selection: At the far right is the color section tool. The colored box displays the current text color; to choose a new one, click the arrow button just to the right. If you have text selected, the color will apply to the selected text. If you do not have text selected, the color will apply to whatever you type next. You can select a background color or image by right-clicking on the message background and selecting Page. The Insert gives you opinions which let you spruce up your email to make it more interesting: Link: Lets you link some text to a website. Use this tool to put hyperlinks in your HTML messages. If you don't want special link text, you can just enter the address directly, and Evolution will recognize it as a link. To add a link: Select the text you wish to link from. Right click on the text and click on Link. Put the URL you want to use in the URL field. Click OK. If you're typing a web page address to be automatically formatted, keep in mind that a space terminates the link. Image: Lets you put an image alongside text. To insert an image into your email: Open a new email by clicking New Message Make sure that you have the Format HTML selector checked. Click the Insert Image button in the toolbar, or select Insert Image . Choose your image by clicking the Browse button. Press Insert to insert the image. Rule: Inserts a horizontal line into the text to help divide two sections. To insert a rule: Open a new email by clicking New Message Make sure that you have the Format HTML selector checked. Click the Rule button in the Toolbar. Select the type of rule. You can use a plain line, a 3D line, or a yellow line with flowers. Choose the size of the line, as a percentage of the width of the email window. Choose the alignment and style. For the plain line, you can choose the thickness of the line, and whether it will be shaded, or solid. For the other types, you can only choose alignment. Click Insert to insert the rule. Table: Inserts a table into the text to help divide two sections. To insert a rule: Open a new email by clicking New Message Make sure that you have the Format HTML selector checked. Click the Table button in the Toolbar. Select the Template you wish to use. Each template has a slightly different feel and layout. If you so desire, you may change the other options such as: number of rows, columns, spacing of each cell, and more. Click the Insert button. To add a hyperlink to your HTML message: Select the text you want to display as a link. Right click on text and select Link Enter the address you wish to link to in the URL field. Press OK. To add an image to your HTML message: Select Insert Image . Click Browse to select the image you want to include in your email. Along the right side of the window, choose the alignment, border, and other attributes of the image. If you change the size attributes, the image will be shrunk or stretched to fit the size you have chosen. If you would like to make the image a clickable link, enter a URL in the Link tab of the window. When you are finished, press Insert to include the image in your message. You can insert an image into the background of your message by right-clicking on the message background and selecting Page. From that dialog, you may also select background color and set other general options about the HTML message you are composing. Evolution not only allows you to decorate your email with HTML text and graphics, but provides you with prebuilt templates for you to use when making these improvements. You can use these to emphasize a point or frame an image in an attractive manner. To include a template into your HTML based email: Create a new email by clicking New Message. Make sure that the Format HTML selector is checked. Click the HTML Template button in the Toolbar or select Insert HTML Template Select the template type in the Template selection box. Your options are Note and Image Frame. Set the size and alignment of the HTML template. Click Insert to insert it where the cursor is. Click on the text in the template, and enter the text you want to use. If you have selected an image frame template, right-click on the image and select Image to select the image you want to place in the frame. Evolution allows you to put tables in your HTML email to help organize your thoughts. These tables are a simplified version of what you might find in a spreadsheet program like Gnumeric. To include a table in your email: Create a new email by clicking New Message. Make sure you have the Format HTML selector checked. Select Insert Table or click the Table button in the toolbar. Select the template, or style, you want to use for the table. Set the number of rows and columns you want. Click the Insert button. Click in a cell and type to insert text into the table. You can also edit a table after creation. Just right-click on it and select Table to open the table editing window again. Or, you can select items from the Table Delete and Table Insert menus. You can delete an entire table by right-clicking on a table or other HTML object in a message, and selecting Table Delete Table . In an HMTL message, your signature, templates, and image inclusions all have tables around them, and you can remove them completely and quickly with this shortcut. The post office forwards your mail for you when you change addresses, and you can forward a letter if it comes to you by mistake. The email Forward button works in much the same way. It's particularly useful if you have received a message and you think someone else would like to see it. You can forward a message as an attachment to a new message (this is the default) or you can send it inline as a quoted portion of the message you are sending. Attachment forwarding is best if you want to send the full, unaltered message on to someone else. Inline forwarding is best if you want to send portions of a message, or if you have a large number of comments on different sections of the message you are forwarding. Remember to note from whom the message came, and where, if at all, you have removed or altered content. To forward a message you are reading, press Forward on the toolbar, or select Message Forward . If you prefer to forward the message inline instead of attached, select Message Forward Inline from the menu. Choose an addressee as you would when sending a new message; the subject will already be entered, but you can alter it. Enter your comments on the message in the composition frame, and press Send. Don't send spam or forward chain mail. If you must, watch out for hoaxes and urban legends, and make sure the message doesn't have multiple layers of greater-than signs, (>) indicating multiple layers of careless in-line forwarding. Always begin and close with a salutation. Say "please" and "thank you," just like you do in real life. You can keep your pleasantries short, but be pleasant! WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS MEANS YOU'RE SHOUTING! Don't write a whole message in capital letters. It hurts people's ears. Check your spelling and use complete sentences. By default, Evolution will put a red line beneath words it doesn't recognize, as you type them. Don't send nasty emails (flames). If you get one, don't write back. When you reply or forward, include just enough of the previous message to provide context: not too much, not too little. Don't send spam. Evolution can do a lot with email by utilizing the HTML features. Making an email functional and visually attractive can be challenging. The following section provides tips to make your mail functional, while being more visually attractive than ever. Indented sections are a great way to categorize and group your thoughts together. Below is an example of indented text with headings to help separate your thoughts into the proper sections:

This message is not only more attractive, but more informative. Each section is broken down into subsections. The title for each section is in bold text, with the following content indented. You may want to increase the size of your section headlines instead of merely putting them in bold. Header size 4 is often the best choice, since it is not too large. You can change your text to size 4 by selecting it and pressing Ctrl+4. You can set your text to the normal text size by hitting Ctrl+0. Select the Bulleted List option from the text style drop-down box to begin making a bulleted list. Evolution will handle the word wrap and indentation for you. If you prefer to send the message in plain text, you can still write it up in HTML, and Evolution will convert to a well-formed plain-text bulleted list, using asterisks instead of HTML bullets. Images can help people to understand your point. You can even use a HTML Picture Frame Template in Evolution, which looks very attractive and sets your image off from the rest of your message with a border and caption. If you do choose to use images, try to keep them narrow. If your images are wider than 400 pixels, the image may not fit in the whole email window, making it hard for your reader to read the email and view the image. Consider using a smaller version ("thumbnail") of your image, and offering a link to the larger version your readers can view in a web browser if they want.

Colors can help bring words or sentences out for emphasis. You should choose your colors carefully though, as the wrong color can be distracting. Some good colors to use would be: Light brown Dull purple Dark red Notice how these colors are similar saturation Happy mailing! If you create an event in the calendar component, you can then send invitations to the attendee list through the Ximian Evolution email tool. The invitation card is sent as an attachment in iCal format. If you click on the attachment button and click the View Inline, Ximian Evolution will show you information about the meeting, and let you respond to the meeting in several ways. Select the response that you would like, and then click the OK button. Your options are: Accept: Select this entry if you will attend the meeting. When you click the OK button, the meeting will be entered into your calendar. Tentatively Accept: Select this entry if you will probably attend the meeting. When you click the OK button, the meeting will be entered into your calendar, but marked as tentative. Decline: Select this item if you will be unable to attend the meeting. The meeting will not be entered into your calendar when you click the OK, although your response will be sent to the meeting host if you have checked the RSVP box. RSVP: Check this box if you would like your response sent to the meeting organizers. Since IMAP folders exist on the server, and opening them or checking them takes time, you need fine-grained control over the way that you use IMAP folders. That's why Evolution has an IMAP subscriptions manager. If you prefer to have every mail folder displayed, you can select that option as well. However, if you'd like to choose specific items in your mailbox, and exclude others, you can use the subscription management tool to do that. Here's how: Select ToolsSubscribe to Folders. If you have accounts on multiple IMAP servers, select the server where you'd like to manage your subscriptions. Evolution will display a list of available files and folders. Select a file or folder by clicking on it. You will want to select at least the INBOX folder. Depending upon the way your IMAP server is configured, the list of available files may include non-mail folders. If it does, you can ignore them. Click the Subscribe to add it to the subscribed list. When you have subscribed to the folders you want, close the window. Encryption is an ancient method of keeping information safe from prying eyes. Evolution helps you you protect your privacy by using gpg, an implementation of strong Public Key Encryption. GPG uses two keys: public and private. You can give your public key to anyone you want to receive encrypted messages, or put it on a public key server so that people can look it up before contacting you. Never give your private key to anyone, ever. Your private key lets you decrypt any message encrypted with your public key. Using encryption takes a bit of forethought. When you send a message that is encrypted, you must encrypt it using your intended recipient's public key. To get an encrypted message, you must make sure that the sender has your public key in advance. For signing messages, it's reversed: you encrypt the signature with your private key, so only your public key can unlock it. When you send it, the recipient gets your public key and unlocks the signature, verifying your identity. You can use encryption in two different ways: Encrypt the entire message, so that nobody but the recipient can read it. Attach an encrypted signature to a plain text message, so that the recipient can read the message without decrypting it, and only needs decryption to verify the sender's identity. Kevin wants to send an encrypted message to his friend Rachel. He looks up her public key on a general key server, and then tells Evolution to encrypt the message. The message now reads "@#$23ui7yr87#@!48970fsd." When the information gets to Rachel, she decrypts it using her private key, and it appears as plain text for her to read. You can set Evolution to always sign your email messages: Open your account preferences. Open the Security tab. Click the Always sign outgoing messages when using this account button. Before you can get or send encrypted mail, you need to generate your public and private keys with GPG. Here's how: This manual covers version 1.0.6 of GPG. If your version is different, this may not be entirely accurate. You may find out your version number by typing in: gpg --version. Open a terminal and type gpg --gen-key. Choose the default algorithm, "DSA and ElGamal." Choose a key length. The default, 1024 bits, should be long enough. Decide if you want your key to expire automatically, and if so, when. Enter your name, email address, and any additional personal information you think is appropriate. Do not falsify this information, because it will be needed to verify your identity later on. Next, enter your passphrase. It does not have to be the same as your email password or your login password. In fact, it probably shouldn't. Don't forget it. If you lose it, your keys will be useless and you will be unable to decrypt messages sent to you with those keys. Now, GPG will generate your keys. This may take awhile, so feel free to do something else while it's happening. In fact, using your computer for something else actually helps to generate better keys, because it increases the randomness in the key generation seeds. Once the keys are generated, you can view your key information by typing gpg --list-keys. You should see something similar to this: /home/you/.gnupg/pubring.gpg ---------------------------- pub 1024D/32j38dk2 2001-06-20 you <you@your-address.com> sub 1024g/289sklj3 2001-06-20 [expires: 2002-11-14] GPG will create one list, or keyring, for your public keys and one for your private keys. All the public keys you know are stored in the file ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg. If you want to give other people your key, send them that file. If you wish, you can upload your keys to a key server. Here's how: Check your public key ID with gpg --list-keys. It will be the string after 1024D on the line beginning with "pub." In this example, it's 32j38dk2. Enter the command gpg --send-keys --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net 32j38dk2. Substitute your key ID for 32j38dk2. You will need your password to do this. Key servers store your public keys for you so that your friends can decrypt your messages. If you choose not to use a key server, you can manually send your people public key, include it in your signature file, or put it on your own web page. However, it's easier to publish them once, and then let people download them from a central place when they want. If you don't have a key you need to unlock or encrypt a message, you can have your encryption tool set to look it up automatically. If it can't find the key, then you'll get an error message. To encrypt a message to your someone else you'll need to use their public key in combination with your private key. Evolution does that for you, but you still need to get their key and add it to your keyring. To get public keys from a public key server, enter the command: gpg --recv-keys --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net keyid , substituting "keyid" for your recipient's ID. You will need to type in your password, and then their ID will automatically be added to your keyring. When you send mail to them, Evolution will allow you to encrypt your messages. If someone sends you their public key directly, save it as a plain text file and enter the command gpg filename. This will add it to your keyring. You'll need to open Tools Settings and select the Mail Accounts button, then select the account you want to use securely, and click the Edit button. Then, select the Security tab in the account dialog. In the Security tab is a section labeled Pretty Good Privacy. Enter your key ID and click OK. Your key is now integrated into your identity in Evolution. Evolution requires that you know your key ID. If you don't remember it, you can find it by typing gpg --list-keys in a console window. Your key ID will be an eight character string with random numbers and letters. As you know, you can use encryption to hide the entire message, or just to verify your signature. Once you've generated your public and private keys, and have the public keys of the people to whom you want to send mail, here's what to do: To sign a message, choose: Security PGP Sign . You will be prompted for your encryption password. Once you enter it, click OK and your message will be signed. Encrypting a message is very similar to signing a message. Just choose the menu item Security PGP Encrypt If you get an encrypted message, you will need to decrypt it before you read it. Remember, the sender has to have your public key before they can send you an encrypted message. When you view the message, Evolution will ask you for your PGP password. Enter it, and the message will be displayed properly.