System and method for enabling an external-system view of email attachments

• US 10,110,528 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2014
• Issued: 10/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dargahi, Ross, Schemers, III, Roland J., Dharmaraj, Satish
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan, Hua
• Application Number:
  US14/458,146
• Publication Number:
  US 20140351714A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,533 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/907 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments

Abstract

A method and email application enable email attachments to be viewed through a system external to the email application itself in accordance with select categories. The email application creates categories and categorizes the email attachments according to such categories. The email application then maps the categories into a format understandable by the external system for category information and provides the mapped categories to the external system in such format. In response to receiving a request from the external system for the contents of one of the mapped categories and in response to such category having no further subcategories, the email application identifies the email attachments under such category and maps the identified email attachments to file names. The file names are then provided to the external system as the contents of such category. If the external system requests the contents of a category that has further subcategories, the email application maps the subcategories into a format understandable to the external system and provides such subcategories to the external system as the contents of such category.

The present invention can be used to provide a file-system view of email attachments. In such case, the email application appears as a file system to the operating system of an email user'"'"'s computer. The created categories are provided to the operating system as the “folders” in the file system. The email attachments are provided as files within such folders.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a view of categorized email attachments using a system external to an email application that stores and processes emails, the method comprising:

for each of a plurality of emails received by the email application, each email comprising an email attachment;

separately storing the email attachment from the corresponding email in a message store; and

categorizing, in an email system, the email attachment separately from the email as belonging to one or more categories of a plurality of categories, wherein the categorizing of the email attachment includes parsing metadata from the email header of the corresponding email and using the metadata to categorize the email attachment based on categories corresponding to one or more metadata fields;

providing, to the external system, information that identifies each category in the email system determined for each of the categorized email attachments, wherein the external system is associated with a user interface configured to present the categories for selection;

receiving a user selection of a category presented in the user interface, the category corresponding to a category determined for one or more categorized email attachments;

in response to a request for contents of a user selected category presented in the user interface associated with the external system, providing the external system contents of the selected category for display to the user in the user interface, wherein the provided contents include a listing of each separately stored email attachment, independent from the plurality of emails, categorized as belonging to the selected category; and

in response to a user selection of a particular email attachment listed for the selected category, providing the external system with the particular email attachment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises:

identifying one or more email attachments under the selected category;

mapping the one or more email attachments associated with the selected category to file names, and

display the file names as contents of the selected category.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein categorizing the email attachment separately from the email comprises:

generating a metadata document for the email attachment using the parsed metadata associated with the email and the email attachment and a message identifier; and

categorizing the email attachment and the email in separate categories using an indexer that indexes the metadata document according to fields and terms of metadata in the metadata document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises providing files that correspond to each of the stored email attachments associated with the selected category.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the selected category corresponds to metadata associated with all email attachments in the message store.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises providing one or more sub-categories associated with the selected category.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the sub-categories associated with a selected category comprise values of a corresponding metadata field of the email messages associated with the selected category.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, based on the email attachment, creating categories upon which to categorize the email attachment and the email separately in the email system.

9. A system comprising:

a message store for storing email attachments; and

a server comprising a processor programmed to;

for each of a plurality of emails received, each email comprising an email attachment;

separately store the email attachment from the corresponding email in the message store; and

categorize, in one or more categories, the email attachment separately from the email as belonging to one or more categories of a plurality of categories, wherein the categorizing of the email attachment includes parsing metadata from the email header of the corresponding email and using the metadata to categorize the email attachment based on categories corresponding to one or more metadata fields;

provide, to an external system, information that identifies each of the one or more categories determined for each of the categorized email attachments, wherein the external system is associated with a user interface configured to present the categories for selection;

receive a user selection of a category presented in the user interface, the category corresponding to a category determined for one or more categorized email attachments;

in response to a request for contents of a user selected category, of the one or more categories, presented in a user interface associated with the external system, provide the external system contents of the selected category for display to the user in the user interface, wherein the provided contents include a listing of each separately stored email attachment, independent from the plurality of emails, categorized as belonging to the selected category; and

in response to a user selection of a particular email attachment listed for the selected category, provide the external system with the particular email attachment.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises:

identifying one or more email attachments under the selected category;

mapping the one or more email attachments associated with the selected category to file names, and

display the file names as contents of the selected category.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein categorizing the email attachment separately from the email comprises:

generating a metadata document for the email attachment using the parsed metadata associated with the email and the email attachment; and

categorizing the email attachment and the email in separate categories using an indexer that indexes the metadata document according to fields and terms of metadata in the metadata document.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises providing files that correspond to each of the stored email attachments associated with the selected category.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the selected category corresponds to metadata associated with all email attachments in the message store.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor is further programmed to, based on the email attachment, create categories upon which to categorize the email attachment and the email separately in the email system.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions thereon, that when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

for each of a plurality of emails received, each email comprising an email attachment;

separately storing the email attachment from the corresponding email in a message store; and

categorizing the email attachment separately from the email as belonging to one or more categories of a plurality of categories, wherein the categorizing of the email attachment includes parsing metadata from the email header of the corresponding email and using the metadata to categorize the email attachment based on categories corresponding to one or more metadata fields;

providing, to an external system, information that identifies each category determined for each of the categorized email attachments, wherein the external system is associated with a user interface configured to present the categories for selection;

receiving a user selection of a category presented in the user interface, the category corresponding to a category determined for one or more categorized email attachments;

in response to a request for contents of a user selected category presented in a user interface associated with the external system, providing the external system contents of the selected category for display to the user in the user interface, wherein the provided contents include a listing of each separately stored email attachment, independent from the plurality of emails, categorized as belonging to the selected category; and

in response to a user selection of a particular email attachment listed for the selected category, providing the external system with the particular email attachment.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises:

identifying one or more email attachments under the selected category;

mapping the one or more email attachments associated with the selected category to file names, and

display the file names as contents of the selected category.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein categorizing the email attachment separately from the email comprises:

generating a metadata document for the email attachment using the parsed metadata associated with the email and the email attachment; and

categorizing the email attachment and the email in separate categories using an indexer that indexes the metadata document according to fields and terms of metadata in the metadata document.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein providing the external system contents of the selected category comprises providing files that correspond to each of the stored email attachments associated with the selected category.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors further perform the step of, based on the email attachment, creating categories upon which to categorize the email attachment and the email separately in the email system.