How to reset evolution settings to defaults?

Solution 1:

For version 3.4, as Evolution switched to dconf, a complete cleanup would mean:

evolution --force-shutdown
rm -rf ~/.local/share/evolution
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/evolution
rm -rf ~/.cache/evolution
rm -rf ~/.config/evolution
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/evolution/

To be absolutely safe, you may additionally remove all gconf info. If it's not there, it cannot be removed (which is fine in your case as well) -- and if it's still there, you want it removed. For this:

1. Shutdown gconf: gconftool-2 --shutdown
2. Check if the gconf daemon process is gone: ps aux | grep gconf
   • if it's still there, kill it: kill -9 12345 (replace "12345" with the PID found)
3. Let all rockets go, shoot at everything moving:
   sudo gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/evolution
sudo gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/evolution
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/evolution
gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/evolution

I put the commands with "sudo" first (some howtos mention you must be root for that). After the first gconftool call without sudo, you need to repeat the daemon shutdown, as that command automatically starts it again.

Now let's verify our success:

dconf dump /org/gnome/evolution/
gconftool --dump /apps/evolution

This should now yield empty sets. If you start Evolution at this point, it should bring up the configuration wizard again (did it for me). If not (rare cases reported that), repeat the above, do not yet start Evolution again, but log out (optionally simply reboot to be on the save side), and login again. Now it should have done its job.

Remark: As these steps include/cover everything from gconf and dconf, they should work with all Evolution 3.x versions (previous versions had a different directory structure, so things need to be slightly adjusted for them).