Evolution no longer saves outgoing messages to Sent folder

Applications
1

Hello there,

this issue refers to Evolution 3.52.3-0ubuntu1.1 running on Ubunutu 24.04. I have a single e-mail account configured, an institutional account, for which a web-based interface is also offered (Roundcube). This configuration has functioned flawless for an year and half.

Last week I went searching for a message in the Sent folder and could not find it. Turns out there was no message in that folder past the 20th of January, Evolution has not recorded a single outgoing message since. I also notice a complete absence of outgoing messages between the 14th and the 18th of January. I experimented sending messages from Roundcube, and those are recorded in the Sent folder, appearing both in Evolution and in Roundcube itself. Looks like Evolution not only omits these messages locally, but is also deleting from the server (or not recording them there).

A screen capture of the settings for this account:

Selection_126
Selection_1261019×602 76.8 KB

Is there anything else I may be missing?

Thank you.

2

Hi,
you’ve set Sent messages folder to “On This Computer/Sent” folder. The
Roundcube cannot get there, only Evolution, as it is on this computer,
not on the server. Check that folder. If you want to save on the
server, then pick the expected Sent folder on the server.

Some messages might not be there, because you’ve set “Save replies and
forwards in the folder of original message”. It does just what it says.
When you reply to a message in IMAP-account/Inbox/some/folder/, then
the sent message is saved in the IMAP-account/Inbox/some/folder/.

Maybe you turned on the option accidentally, or you tried what it does,
did not notice a difference and forgot it being set.

Bye,
Milan
3

Hi Milan, thank you for the reply.

I went again searching for messages in the Sent folder, it contains no messages past the 21st of January. I then created a new folder, “Sent2” and tweaked the setting point to it. I sent a couple of test messages, but the folder remains empty.

I am unsure why the Reply/Forward setting would have an impact, since Evolution fails to record any kind of sent message. In any case, I tweaked that setting too, but it had no effect.

Anything else I should try?

4

I went again searching for messages in the Sent folder

Hi,

then you do actually look into the On This Computer/Sent folder, right?
It was not clear from the previous text, because you also mentioned you
looked for the sent messages on the server. Okay then, we are on the
same page now.

When you do from a terminal

    `ls ~/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/.Sent/`

, then it should show 3 directories, cur, new and tmp. The sent
messages should be in the cur directory.

`ls -l -t ~/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/.Sent/cur/ | more`

shows them sorted by time, the newest first (which is why I added there
the | more at the end of the command.

If they are there, then there’s something with the setting of the Send
folder in the user interface. Like you can show only certain messages.
Check

where you can skip the first bullet, unless you use any Outgoing filter
(possibly not, but better to verify that).

I am unsure why the Reply/Forward setting would have an impact

It has a huge impact, because it saves these messages to a different
place than to the On This Computer/Sent, thus it can look like it does
not save the message, but it only saves it elsewhere than you’d expect.

As always, try to run Evolution from a terminal and watch its output.
It can print some error information when sending the message there.

Bye,
Milan