Mailcap files will be read when starting ELinks. The mailcap files to use will be found from the mailcap path, a colon separated list of files similar to the $PATH environment variable. The mailcap path will be determined in the following way:
From the value of the mime.mailcap.path option in elinks.conf; for example:
set mime.mailcap.path = "~/.mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap"
~/.mailcap:/etc/mailcap.