Comment 5 for bug 545113

The latest round of updates I did has changed the behavior of this for me.

If evolution is open in the background but not visible I now get a notification for any new emails that arrive. Emails currently in the inbox but marked as unread do not show on the count.

With Evolution closed I get no notifications. The inbox applet does not show any information.

As noted by phillamg, if evolution has the focus there is also no notification.