| GNOME Evolution | |
|---|---|
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 Evolution 3.6; September 2012 | |
| Original author | Ximian |
| Developer | GNOME Project |
| Initial release | 10 May 2000; 25 years ago (2000-05-10)[1] |
| Stable release | 3.58.2[2]  / 21 November 2025 |
| Written in | C (GTK) |
| Operating system | Unix-like |
| Available in | 53[3] languages |
List of languages English, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Slovenian, Ukrainian[3] | |
| Type | Personal information manager |
| License | LGPL 2.1 only[a] and others[4] |
| Website | gitlab |
| Repository | |
GNOME Evolution (formerlyNovell Evolution andXimian Evolution, beforeNovell acquiredXimian in 2003) is the officialpersonal information manager forGNOME. It has been an official part of GNOME since Evolution 2.0 was included with the GNOME 2.8 release in September 2004.[5] It combinesemail,address book,calendar,task list, andnote-taking features. Itsuser interface and functions are similar toMicrosoft Outlook. Evolution isfree software licensed under the terms of theGNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
Evolution delivers the following features:[6]
The Novell GroupWise plug-in is no longer in active development.[10] AScalix plug-in[11] is also available, but its development stopped in 2009.[12]
Evolution Data Server (EDS) is a set of libraries and sessionservices for storing address books and calendars.[13] Other software such asCalifornia[14] andGNOME Calendar[15][16] depends on EDS also.
Some documentation about the software architecture is available in the GNOME wiki.[17]
Depending on which version of Microsoft Exchange Server is used, different packages need to be installed to be able to connect to it. The documentation recommends theevolution-ewspackage (which usesExchange Web Services) for Exchange Server 2007, 2010 and newer. Ifevolution-ews does not work well, it is advised to try theevolution-mapi package. This supports Exchange Server 2010, 2007 and possibly older versions supporting Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI). For Exchange Server 2003, 2000 and possibly earlier versions supportingOutlook Web App the packageevolution-exchange is recommended.[18]
Ximian decided to develop Evolution in 2000. It felt there were no email clients forLinux at the time that could provide the functionality and interoperability necessary for corporate users. Ximian saw an opportunity for Linux to penetrate the corporate environment if the rightenterprise software was available for it. It released Evolution 1.0 in December 2001 and offered the paid Ximian Connector plug-in which allowed users to connect with Microsoft Exchange Server. Evolution itself has been free software from the start, but Ximian Connector was sold asproprietary software so that Ximian could generate revenue.[19] This changed after Novell's acquisition of Ximian in August 2003. Novell decided to integrate the Exchange plug-in as free software in Evolution 2.0 in May 2004.[20]
Novell was in turn acquired byThe Attachmate Group in 2011. It transferred Novell's former Evolution developers to its subsidiarySUSE. In 2012 SUSE decided to stop its funding of Evolution's development and assigned its developers elsewhere. As a consequence only two full-time developers employed byRed Hat remained.[10] Later in 2013 Red Hat dedicated more developers to the project, reinvigorating its development. The reasons given for the decision were the cessation of active development onMozilla Thunderbird and the need for an email client with good support for Microsoft Exchange.[21]
As a part of GNOME, Evolution is released assource code.Linux distributions providepackages of GNOME for end-users. Evolution is used as the default personal information manager on several Linux distributions which use GNOME by default, most notablyDebian andFedora.Ubuntu has replaced Evolution withMozilla Thunderbird as the default email client sinceUbuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.[22]
In the past,[when?] Evolution wasported toApple Mac OS X andMicrosoft Windows, but these ports are discontinued.[when?]
In 2006, Novell released an installer for Evolution 2.6 on Mac OS X.[23] In January 2005, Novell'sNat Friedman announced in his blog[24] that the company had hired Tor Lillqvist, the programmer who portedGIMP to Microsoft Windows, to do the same with Evolution. Before this announcement, several projects with the same goal had been started but none of them reached alpha status. In 2008, DIP Consultants released a Windows installer for Evolution 2.28.1-1 for MicrosoftWindows XP and newer.[25] As of 2025, it is available for download from only theSourceForge project page.[26]
A slightly more recent (2010–2011) experimental installer for Evolution 3.0.2 is provided byopenSUSE.[27][28] Users have faced difficulties getting this version working.[29]
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