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9.1 What are contexts ¶

Let’s see what’s contained in a context. Most of it is optional.

A mu4e-context is a Lisp object with the following members:

• name: the name of the context, e.g. work or private. In the default completion UI, mu4e uses the first letter of the context to select them, so you should ensure all start with a different letter
• vars: an association-list (alist) of variable settings for this account.
• enter-func: an (optional) function that takes no parameter and is invoked when entering the context. You can use this for extra setup etc.
• leave-func: an (optional) function that takes no parameter and is invoked when leaving the context. You can use this for cleaning things up.
• match-func: an (optional) function that takes an MSG message plist as argument, and returns non-nil if this context matches the situation. mu4e uses the first context that matches, in a couple of situations:
  • when starting mu4e to determine the starting context; in this case, MSG is nil. You can use e.g. the host name or the time of day to determine which context matches.
  • before replying to or forwarding a message with the given message plist as parameter, or nil when composing a brand new message. The function should return t when this context is the right one for this message, or nil otherwise.
  • when determining the target folders for deleting, refiling etc; see Contexts and special folders.

mu4e uses a variable mu4e-contexts, which is a list of such objects.