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How can I change settings in Evolution 3.2.2 so that emails are marked read once I display them? I know this is default behavior of pretty much any email client, however, I just can't find that option anymore. A tick box "Mark emails as read after xxx seconds" used to be found under Preferences/Mail Preferences/General in earlier but it seems gone now.

wintercorn
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3 Answers3

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For evolution 3.4 onwards this is now in dconf in a different location and in ms:

dconf write /org/gnome/evolution/mail/mark-seen-timeout 0
Graeme Moss
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This setting is now in gconf:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/evolution/mail/display/mark_seen_timeout --type int 0
muru
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Vadim Rutkovsky
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  • Thanks for the answer, setting the option in gconf works. Do you know if this is some kind of bug or has such a common option been removed from the GUI intentionally? The latter would seem a bizarre design decision to me. – wintercorn Jan 30 '12 at 12:44
  • @wintercorn Yes, this option was removed as it is not widely used, so power users will use gconf to edit this. Here is a bugreport – Vadim Rutkovsky Jan 30 '12 at 14:47
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    I see. I was puzzled as I just wanted to deactivate that option temporarily for some purpose. However, there was the update, and then there was no way to get it back. Probably a special case. I still can't really see why one should suddenly move such a common option from the GUI to gconf but I guess that's Gnome philosophy. – wintercorn Jan 31 '12 at 06:50
  • This does not seem to work for me in Evolution 3.4.4. Has the key changed? – Graeme Moss Feb 12 '15 at 10:56
  • For evolution 3.4 onwards this is now in dconf in a different location and in ms: dconf write /org/gnome/evolution/mail/mark-seen-timeout 0 – Graeme Moss Feb 12 '15 at 11:08
  • This is back in the UI as of evolution 3.6 – Krease Feb 15 '18 at 18:09
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For those, like me, who want to turn this to never mark as read, instead of 0, use a pretty big number, so it practically never gets marked read automatically.

or this command turn this feature off

gconftool-2 --set /apps/evolution/mail/display/mark_seen --type boolean false

With more recent evolution version (e.g. 3.12.11), use gsettings instead

gsettings set org.gnome.evolution.mail mark-seen false
Toni
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blaze
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  • I set the key as above, confirmed that it was set and restarted Evolution 3.4.3. It still automatically marks messages as read. – SabreWolfy Sep 11 '12 at 19:26