Evolution: save as txt

Applications
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1

Hi,
I prefer saving my handled email as txt, so I can open them later in a light editor, without opening it in my mailclient.
In Betterbird (and Thunderbird) you can save as txt (even without the plugin there exists for that).
In Evolution, I can save as file, and select “all files” and add the .txt extension, but then a whole bunch of unreadable formatting text is added. The message is there somewhere as well, but that’s not really an easy way to read.

Is there a text-format that is accepted, or an extension to accomplish what I want?

2

Evolution’s “Save to File” saves emails (both their headers and their body) in Plain Text format with an .mbox file extension.

It sounds like you only want a small number of headers (maybe Subject, Date, Sender) and the plain-text body?

What is the actual underlying problem getting solved by using “a light editor” instead of a mail client for “opening” (reading? something else?) mail?

3

The default text-editor opens txt files much faster and with less use of screen use. So you can open old mails faster when searching something, while also have another window visible behind it. The speed is the most important.

Also, on whatever system I will ever use, I can open txt files.

Some mail clients immediately import the eml-file when you open it. Also something I don’t want.

That’s correct.

4

Hi,
since the Evolution 3.54.x series you can run it as:

evolution --view FILENAME

which will open the mail in a similar way as if it was in the app, but
it reads it from the file. Evolution used to import the file too,
though the import has a preview when done from a command line.

Back to your query: I’m not aware of any plugin to save the message as
a pure text file, neither Evolution does that itself. The closest is to
view the message, then focus the preview panel, press Ctrl+A to select
everything, then Ctrl+C to copy the selected text and then just paste
the clipboard content into your favorite text editor. I know it’s
complicated with many steps, I’m sorry.

Bye,
Milan
5

Yeah, I used to do this indeed, I don’t remember when. It works and I will fall back to that option, if necessary.

I used Betterbird, but the calendar doesn’t seem to play nice any-more with nextcloud caldav (I think the issue is with invitees you can change, resulting in conflicts with NextCloud). There for, I want to give Evolution a try. To really test an application, you have to use it daily, get used to it’s workflow to appreciate it and do the effort to make it work for you. So that’s what I’m doing now. Might go back to Betterbird or Thunderbird though).

6

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