Evolution 2.30 onwards comes with support for IMAP IDLE. This feature allows for real-time e-mail notifications – commonly referred to as ‘push notifications’ – without the need to click on ‘refresh’ or ‘get mail’ buttons.

If your email provider supports IMAP IDLE (for example Gmail does) then you can enable IMAP IDLE support in Evolution with two simple steps.

Ubuntu Forums member Nick Rhodes got in contact to share his tutorial on enabling the feature in Evolution.

CREATE or EDITI your IMAP account in Evolution, setting the following features: –

  1. When setting the Receiving Email Server Type select IMAP+ from the dropdown. This tells evolution that your IMAP account supports IDLE.
  2. Due a bug (fixed in Evolution 2.32) you need to go to the Receiving “Options” tab and check the “Use idle if the server supports it” option”

Thanks Nick!

evolution gmail tips