This is a guide to setting up access to email from a Gmail account (eg: @gmail.com) within Emacs (Doom Emacs) using mu, mbsync (isync), and mu4e (mu for emacs).

You may have to complete additional steps if you are not using doom emacs (a), Gmail, or if your set-up differs from mine in other ways.

Prerequisites

Please be sure you’ve completed these steps before continuing:

Required Software

  1. Install mbsync version >= 1.4.1.

    We will use mbsync to download our email. It is essential that the version is greater than or equal to 1.3.3 to ensure the OAuth2 token is not cut off (see line 1891 in drv_imap.c (a))

    git clone https://git.code.sf.net/p/isync/isync isync
cd isync
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

  2. Install mu.

    mu will index the emails we’ve downloaded with mbsync and provide them to the mu4e package.

    sudo apt install maildir-utils

  3. Install mu4e.

    mu4e is our email client within emacs.

    sudo apt install mu4e

  4. Download gmail-oauth2-tools.

    This utility will generate our refersh tokens for us.

    git clone https://github.com/google/gmail-oauth2-tools

  5. Download Cyrus SASL Oauth2

    mbsync doesn’t support OAuth2, so we’ll install a plugin which enables it.

    # Reference: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/632794/423626
# Clone the Cyrus SASL OAuth2 sources.
git clone https://github.com/moriyoshi/cyrus-sasl-xoauth2.git

# Configure and make.
cd cyrus-sasl-xoauth2
./autogen.sh
./configure

# SASL2 libraries on Ubuntu are in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/; modify the Makefile accordingly
sed -i 's%pkglibdir = ${CYRUS_SASL_PREFIX}/lib/sasl2%pkglibdir = ${CYRUS_SASL_PREFIX}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sasl2%' Makefile

make
sudo make install

# Install saslpluginviewer
sudo apt install sasl2-bin

# Verify XOAUTH2 is known to SASL.
saslpluginviewer | grep XOAUTH2

Create an OAuth2 Client ID

Please refer to: Create an OAuth2 Client ID

Create mbsyncrc

  1. Create a new file at ~/.mbsyncrc (or symlink to that location, etc).
  2. Base your config on mine, included below:
    # Account Information
IMAPAccount gmail
Host imap.gmail.com
User cashbweaver@gmail.com
AuthMechs XOAUTH2
PassCmd "/path/to/gen_email_access_token.sh"
SSLType IMAPS

IMAPStore gmail-remote
Account gmail

MaildirStore gmail-local
Path ~/.mail/cashweaver-gmail
Inbox ~/.mail/cashweaver-gmail/inbox

Channel gmail-inbox
Far :gmail-remote:
Near :gmail-local:
Patterns "INBOX"

Channel gmail-sent
Far :gmail-remote:"[Gmail]/Sent Mail"
Near :gmail-local:sent
Remove Near
Create near
SyncState *

Channel gmail-trash
Far :gmail-remote:"[Gmail]/Trash"
Near :gmail-local:trash
Remove Near
Create near
SyncState *

Channel gmail-drafts
Far :gmail-remote:"[Gmail]/Drafts"
Near :gmail-local:drafts
Remove Near
Create near
SyncState *

Group gmail
Channel gmail-inbox
Channel gmail-sent
Channel gmail-trash
Channel gmail-drafts

Emable IMAP in your Gmail Account

Follow the documentation (a) to enable IMAP.

Enable mu4e within emacs

This step is written for those using doom emacs (a). Those using other flavors of emacs will need to enable mu4e on their own.

  1. Enable mu4e within doom emacs (a) by uncommenting (mu4e +gmail) within init.el.

  2. Sync doom emacs.

    doom sync

  3. Reload doom emacs by either killing emacs and restarting, or by running doom/reload (SPC : doom/reload or SPC h r r).

Sync and index your email

Follow the steps documented by doom emacs’ mu4e section (a).

  1. Sync your email by running mbsync --all.

    This may take a while.

  2. Index your email by running:

    mu init --maildir ~/.mail --my-address <you>@gmail.com
mu index

  3. Configure emacs to use your email address.

    As an example:

    ;; Each path is relative to `+mu4e-mu4e-mail-path', which is ~/.mail by default
(set-email-account! "gmail.com"
                    '((mu4e-sent-folder       . "/gmail.com/Sent Mail")
                    (mu4e-drafts-folder     . "/gmail.com/Drafts")
                    (mu4e-trash-folder      . "/gmail.com/Trash")
                    (mu4e-refile-folder     . "/gmail.com/All Mail")
                    (smtpmail-smtp-user     . "<you>@gmail.com")
                    (mu4e-compose-signature . "<Your signature here>"))

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