[Evolution-users] Use shared Evolution config/data files on a dual boot setup

[Milan Crha]

On Sat, 2025-08-16 at 20:53 +0200, Sebastian Spree via evolution-users
wrote:
> I have set up my machine as a dualboot Fedora/Solus.
> Assuming they both use the same Evolution version, is it feasible to
> make them share the same config/data folders eliminating the need to
> sync anything.

	Hi,
as long as they use the same versions of the Evolution and evolution-
data-server then yes, it can work. Note the 3.58.x will change internal
format for mail message list, which cannot be shared with the previous
versions.

> The first link above states that starting with Evolution 3.6, folders
> are...

Yes, Evolution(-data-server) follows XDG directories. You might be able
to override the environment variables to move the data there, but you
need to do stat before you start the application (and evolution-data-
server background processes), but you do not want to do that for all
the applications, thus it's tricky to use. The symlinks work better/are
easier in this case.

> What about dconf settings?
> What about the passwords in the keyrings?

They use their own directories. They are also shared for all the apps
which use them. If I'm not mistaken, it's:

~/.config/dconf/
~/.local/share/keyrings/

Also note of ~/.local/share/camel_certs/ , though I'm not sure whether
it's still in use (the files touched there date 2 years back here).

> Searching for files/directories containing "evolution"
> I also found:
> /home/sebi/.cache/org.gnome.Evolution
> /home/sebi/.local/share/org.gnome.Evolution
> 
> What about those directories?

Aha, I see, I have them here too. Looking into them, they are created
by the WebKitGTK. You can safely ignore them, they are disposable.

	Bye,
	Milan