Mailfence Emacs MU4E Setup

I have been exploring MU4E for Emacs, a searched based mail client that I am thoroughly enjoying using. It has taught me a lot about email protocols and provided me with a seamless email experience that I want to share. This article will outline the process of configuring Doom Emacs with MU4E using the Mailfence email server. There were a few aspects not covered in the Doom Emacs documentation, so I decided to write this article to assist anyone configuring their setup similarly to mine.

Snapshot Configuration

Here's the complete Emacs configuration for setting up SMTP for sending mail and IMAP for receiving mail. You will need to install certain programs on your system, as well as additional packages within Emacs. Fortunately, Emacs includes a built-in utility called smtpmail for sending emails via an email server. However, Emacs does not natively support mail synchronization, which is where MU4E becomes essential.

(add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/mu4e")

(setq auth-sources '("~/.authinfo.gpg" "~/.authinfo"))

(setq! message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
      smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.mailfence.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-service 465
      smtpmail-stream-type 'ssl
      smtpmail-auth-supported '(plain login)
      smtpmail-auth-credentials (expand-file-name "~/.authinfo.gpg"))

(set-email-account! "joe@mailfence.ca"
  '((mu4e-sent-folder . "/Sent Items")
    (mu4e-drafts-folder . "/Drafts")
    (mu4e-get-mail-command . "offlineimap -o")
    (mu4e-update-interval . 60)
    (mu4e-trash-folder . "/Trash")
    (smtpmail-smtp-user . "joe")
    (mail-host-address . "mailfence.ca")
    (user-full-name . "Devin")
    (user-mail-address . "joe@mailfence.ca")
    (smtpmail-smtp-server   . "smtp.mailfence.com")
    (mu4e-compose-signature . "---\nRegards,\nDev"))
  t)

Setup offlineimap

offlineimap is a tool designed to synchronize your emails from a mail server. Setting it up is quite simple.

Install

sudo apt install offlineimap

Configure

Copy the minimal configuration if you want or just use the configuration I provided.

cp offlineimap.conf.minimal ~/.offlineimaprc

# .offlineimaprc

[general]
accounts = Mailfence
maxsyncaccounts = 3

[Account Mailfence]
localrepository = Local
remoterepository = Remote

[Repository Local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/Maildir

[Repository Remote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.mailfence.com
remoteuser = joe@mailfence.ca
remotepass = 'password' <==== update this
ssl = yes
maxconnections = 1
sslcacertfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

Create directory to hold your mail

mkdir ~/Maildir

Sync your mail

This sync the mail on your email server with a local folder on your pc. Notice the Emacs configuration above includes (mu4e-get-mail-command . "offlineimap -o") this allows MU4E to trigger mail fetching on your system.

offlineimap -o

Index your mail

This allows mu to quickly query your mail when making searches etc.

mu init --maildir ~/Maildir --my-address joe@mailfence.ca

Setup MUE4

To start you need to install the MU4E Emacs package. This is it's own program that interacts with the system installation of MU4E. Uncomment the MU4E package inside your init.el file under the :mail heading.

:email
(mu4e +org +gmail +offlineimap)
;;notmuch
;;(wanderlust +gmail)

Then restart Emacs or run the doom/reload command leader h r r to install the package.

Install MU4E on your system

Now you need to install the MU4E program. We will build from source. First clone the repository into a directory of your choice. The typical place to install it would be /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/mu4e (the configuration above uses the add-to-list function to allow emacs to execute it).

cd /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/mu4e
./autogen.sh && make
sudo make install

Try reading mail

Navigate to the mue4 menu again and view your inbox using J. Try pressing RET on the message you want to read.

Setup SMTP

Now to setup sending mail. The configuration above contains everything you need to send mail through Emacs using SMTP. The only thing you need to do is update the fields to match your credentials and create a file to store your sensitive credentials.

touch .authinfo.gpg

machine smtp.mailfence.com login joe password <your password> port 465

Once you save this file, you will be prompted to create a password for decrypting it. The first time you send an email while using Emacs, you will need to enter this password. For any subsequent messages, you won’t be asked for it again. To let Emacs recognize your credentials file, set the auth-sources variable like this: (setq auth-sources '("~/.authinfo.gpg" "~/.authinfo")). This is in the configuration at the begining of the article.

Try sending mail

Navigate to the mu4e menu and compose a message by pressing C. To send your mail, press C-c C-c and you're done.