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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 Lisp object with the following members:

• name: the name of the context, e.g. work or private
• 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 clearing 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 you’re running 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.