Evolution crashes when the Inbox size exceeds 2GB. As a result, when you open Evolution the Inbox will be empty, and an Error message will be at the bottom that says
Error while opening folder mbox:/home/myname/.evolution/mail/local #inbox

The solution is to archive your mails frequently. Clear your trash frequently.

 And in this particualr occasion, when your Evolution is crashing use the help of archivemail

In Fedora, perform the following.

 As root

yum install archivemail

say you back up your mails,setting,filter,ect from evolution. i.e back up .evolution/mail directory.
Then say you reinstall a OS and want to import the backed up mails. well following is the procedure i use.
1. Install Evolution
2. stop evolution ,remove evolution/mail directory
3. copy the backed up mails there.
4. Now if you start evolution you might get the following error
Error while Refreshing folder. Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

If you receive that:

1. shut down evolution
2. go to the .evolution/mail/local directory
3. rm *summary* files