diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index b83eb445..ff871e3a 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -144,8 +144,6 @@ conf.set_quoted('_WEB_EXTENSIONS_DIR', web_extensions_dir)
 conf.set_quoted('LANGUAGE_SUPPORT_DIRECTORY', locale_dir)
 conf.set_quoted('ISO_CODE_639_XML', iso_639_xml)
 conf.set_quoted('ISO_CODE_3166_XML', iso_3166_xml)
-conf.set('HAVE_LIBMESSAGINGMENU', libmessagingmenu.found())
-conf.set('HAVE_LIBUNITY', libunity.found())
 conf.set('HAVE_FTS3_TOKENIZE', true)
 conf.set('VERSION', meson.project_version())
 conf.set('GCR_API_SUBJECT_TO_CHANGE', true)
diff --git a/src/client/meson.build b/src/client/meson.build
index 424ae473..72c8125b 100644
--- a/src/client/meson.build
+++ b/src/client/meson.build
@@ -127,6 +127,8 @@ geary_client_dependencies = [
   geary_engine_dep,
 ]
 
+geary_client_vala_options = geary_vala_options
+
 if libmessagingmenu.found()
   messagingmenu_vapi = meson.get_compiler('vala').find_library(
       'MessagingMenu-1.0',
@@ -135,16 +137,18 @@ if libmessagingmenu.found()
   )
   geary_client_dependencies += libmessagingmenu
   geary_client_dependencies += messagingmenu_vapi
+  geary_client_vala_options += ['-D', 'HAVE_LIBMESSAGINGMENU']
 endif
 if libunity.found()
   geary_client_dependencies += libunity
+  geary_client_vala_options += ['-D', 'HAVE_LIBUNITY']
 endif
 
 geary_client_lib = static_library('geary-client',
   geary_client_sources,
   dependencies: geary_client_dependencies,
   include_directories: config_h_dir,
-  vala_args: geary_vala_options,
+  vala_args: geary_client_vala_options,
   c_args: geary_c_options,
 )