Download the latest mu4e stable release from Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/mu0/downloads/list

• must

  $ sudo apt-get install libgmime-2.6-dev libxapian-dev gnutls-bin
  

• optional

  $ sudo apt-get install guile-2.0-dev html2text xdg-utils
  

• Move mu4e tarball to tmp

  $ mv ~/Downloads/mu-0.9.9.tar.gz /tmp && cd /tmp
  

• Unzip

  $ tar xzvf mu-0.9.9.tar.gz & cd mu-0.9.9
  

• Build

  $ ./configure && make
  

• Install

  $ sudo make install
  

There are a few sample configurations: http://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e/Example-configurations.html#Example-configurations

For gmail, create `~/.offlineimaprc’ and put in:

[general]
accounts = Gmail
maxsyncaccounts = 3

[Account Gmail]
localrepository = Local
remoterepository = Remote

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

[Repository Remote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
remoteuser = renws1990@gmail.com
remotepass = xxx
ssl = yes
maxconnections = 1
realdelete = no

Note: Replace remoteuser and remotepass with your own username and password.

Run offlineimap, this will take some time.

$ offlineimap

Now index your messages

$ mu index --maildir=~/Maildir

This message might appear “database needs update; try ‘mu index –rebuild’, okay:

$ mu index --rebuild
$ mu index

Move the mu4e folder to your load-path (in my case, “~/.emacs.d/dotEmacs/”). Then configure .emacs, add:

;;----------------------------------------------------------
;; ---- BEGIN Email client ----
;;----------------------------------------------------------
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/dotEmacs/mu4e")
(require 'mu4e)

;; default
(setq mu4e-maildir "~/Maildir")
(setq mu4e-drafts-folder "/[Gmail].Drafts")
(setq mu4e-sent-folder   "/[Gmail].Sent Mail")
(setq mu4e-trash-folder  "/[Gmail].Trash")

;; don't save message to Sent Messages, Gmail/IMAP takes care of this
(setq mu4e-sent-messages-behavior 'delete)

;; setup some handy shortcuts
;; you can quickly switch to your Inbox -- press ``ji''
;; then, when you want archive some messages, move them to
;; the 'All Mail' folder by pressing ``ma''.

(setq mu4e-maildir-shortcuts
      '( ("/INBOX"               . ?i)
         ("/[Gmail].Sent Mail"   . ?s)
         ("/[Gmail].Trash"       . ?t)
         ("/[Gmail].All Mail"    . ?a)))

;; allow for updating mail using 'U' in the main view:
(setq mu4e-get-mail-command "offlineimap")

;; something about ourselves
(setq
 user-mail-address "renws1990@gmail.com"
 user-full-name  "任文山 (Ren Wenshan)"
 message-signature
 (concat
  "任文山 (Ren Wenshan)\n"
  "Email: renws1990@gmail.com\n"
  "Blog: wenshanren.org\n"
  "Douban: www.douban.com/people/renws"
  "\n"))

;; sending mail -- replace USERNAME with your gmail username
;; also, make sure the gnutls command line utils are installed
;; package 'gnutls-bin' in Debian/Ubuntu

(require 'smtpmail)
;; (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
;;       starttls-use-gnutls t
;;       smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 nil nil))
;;       smtpmail-auth-credentials
;;       '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 "renws1990@gmail.com" nil))
;;       smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
;;       smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
;;       smtpmail-smtp-service 587)

;; alternatively, for emacs-24 you can use:
(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
    smtpmail-stream-type 'starttls
    smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
    smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com"
    smtpmail-smtp-service 587)

;; don't keep message buffers around
(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)

;;----------------------------------------------------------
;; ---- END Email client ----
;;----------------------------------------------------------

Note Replace the user-mail-address, user-full-name, message-signature with your own email address, full name and signature.

Restart Emacs, you should now be able to fire up mu4e by typing `M-x mu4e’. You can also type `M-x info mu4e’ to read its manual, which is very handy.

In next section, I’ll introduce the most frequently used functions and their key-bindings.