Prevent Emacs from messaging when it writes recentf

Question

I've configured Emacs to save recentf every five minutes by using this code:

(run-at-time nil (* 5 60) 'recentf-save-list)

It works great, but after writing recentf Emacs feels it has to tell me about it, so every 5 minutes I get a message in the minibuffer telling me it wrote recentf.

How do I silence that message?

Answer 1

One solution for that narrow case is to dynamically set save-silently for that invocation specific invocation. Try:

(run-at-time nil (* 5 60)
             (lambda ()
               (let ((save-silently t))
                 (recentf-save-list))))

You might alternatively use advice to globally accomplish the same thing. See Advising Functions in the Emacs Lisp Manual.