From an old mailing list, I got the right method to back up your Evolution (mail + calendar + contacts) data the right way:
Step 1:
Shutdown evolution and gconftool-2:
$gconftool-2 –shutdown
$evolution –force-shutdown
Step 2:
Create an archive with the data and configuration files:
Note: To completely save the Evolution data and configuration, you need to save the following directories/files:
1. ~/.evolution/
2. ~/.gconf/apps/evolution/
3. ~/.gnome2_private/Evolution
The following command will take care of these
$cd
$tar -cvzf evolution-backup.tar.gz .evolution .gconf/apps/evolution .gnome2_private/Evolution
Now the file evolution-backup.tar.gz is the backup you want. You can move the data over to another Ubuntu computer if you like, and just un-tar the archive while in your /home/username/ directory to restore it.
To restore, use:
$gconftool-2 –shutdown
$evolution –force-shutdown
$tar xzf evolution-backup.tar.gz
$gconftool-2 –unload evolution_setting.xml
$gconftool-2 –load evolution_setting.xml
There are two evolution backup scripts that promise to make things easier for you:
Script 1 – in French and English
Script 2: In German
I really don’t see the need for a script, the scripts pretty much do the same thing as the commands above. If you run the commands one by one you will know if something fails immediately. However, I understand someone might want a script to make things easier. A script for backing up is kind of funny since if it fails, you will have no backups, so tread carefully 
