System and method for displaying and acting upon email conversations across folders

• US 7,596,594 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2005
• Issued: 09/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Karp, Daniel Geoffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Flynn; Nathan J
• Assistant Examiner(s): Joo; Joshua
• Application Number:
  US11/202,918
• Publication Number:
  US 20090100009A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,509 Days
• Field of Search: 709203-206, 707/1, 707/7, 707/200
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

System and method for displaying and/or acting upon email conversations across folders. In one embodiment, email messages are grouped into conversations regardless of the folders in which the messages reside. Such conversations can span multiple folders. In one embodiment, all or some messages from a conversation are displayed, along with the folder associated with each message. In one embodiment, specified actions can be taken upon all messages in a conversation regardless of the folders in which the messages reside. In one embodiment, it can be specified that an action should apply (or not apply) only to messages in select folders, or that the action should apply only to messages matching a search query. Such specifications may be a system-level indication (which may be set by the system developer or administrator) or it may be a user indication (either a default user setting or an explicit user comment).

Claims

1. A method for displaying an email conversation across folders comprising:

grouping email messages into conversations, where the grouping is performed independent of folders in which the messages reside, thereby enabling conversations to span multiple folders; and

displaying at least one of the conversations, the at least one of the conversations including a plurality of messages, where, for each of the plurality of messages in the at least one displayed conversation, a folder associated with each of the plurality of messages is identified,

wherein grouping email messages into conversations comprises;

determining from a subject line of an incoming message whether the incoming message is a follow-up message;

in response to the incoming message not being a follow-up message, creating an open conversation based on the subject line of the incoming message and associating the incoming message with the created open conversation;

in response to the incoming message being a follow-up message, normalizing the subject line of the incoming message and determining whether or not an open conversation exists for the normalized subject line;

in response to an open conversation not existing for the normalized subject line, creating a new open conversation for the normalized subject line and associating the incoming message with the new open conversation; and

in response to an open conversation existing for the normalized subject line, associating the incoming message with the existing open conversation, and

wherein determining whether or not an open conversation exists for a normalized subject line comprises;

in response to there being an open conversation corresponding to the normalized subject line, determining whether or not the a last-received message in the open conversation was received before a certain date;

in response to determining that the last-received message was received before the certain date, closing the open conversation and determining that an open conversation does not exist for the normalized subject line;

in response to determining that the last-received message was received after the certain date, comparing header information in the incoming message with header information in the last received message in the open conversation to determine whether similarities in the header information indicates the incoming message and the last-received message are related;

in response to determining the incoming message and the last-received message in the open conversation are related, determining that an open conversation exists for the normalized subject line; and

in response to determining that the incoming message and the last received message in the open conversation are not related, closing the open conversation and determining that an open conversation does not exist for the normalized subject line.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying at least one of the conversations including the plurality of messages comprises:

fetching a message object associated with one of the plurality of messages where the message object includes summary data about the one of the plurality of messages;

identifying from the message object the at least one of the conversations associated with the one of the plurality of messages;

performing a search for other message objects associated with the identified at least one of the conversations, where the search is performed across multiple folders in which the plurality of messages reside; and

using information in the message object and the other message objects associated with the identified one of the conversations to enable display of information about the messages in the identified least one of the conversations.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying at least one of the conversations including the plurality of messages comprises:

fetching a message object associated with one of the plurality of messages where the message object includes summary data about the one of the plurality of messages;

identifying from the message object the at least one of the conversations associated with the one of the plurality of messages;

retrieving cached information related to the plurality of messages in the identified conversation; and

using the cached information to enable display of information about the plurality of messages in the identified conversation.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of the at least one conversation includes all of the plurality of messages in the at least one conversation, regardless of folders in which the plurality of messages reside.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of the at least one conversation includes all of the plurality of messages in the at least one conversation except for a subset of the plurality of the messages in folders related to trash or spam.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the display the at least one conversation includes all of the plurality of messages in the at least one conversation that satisfy a search query.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of the at least one conversation includes all of the plurality of messages in the at least one conversation that satisfy a search query, except for a subset of the plurality of the messages in folders related to trash or spam.

8. A method for performing an action upon an email conversation comprising:

grouping a plurality of email messages into a plurality of conversations, where the grouping is performed independent of folders in which the plurality of email messages reside, thereby enabling the plurality of conversations to span multiple folders;

receiving an indication from a user to perform an action upon a conversation of the plurality of conversations comprising a subset of the plurality of email messages; and

performing the action upon the conversation of the plurality of conversations, wherein the action is applied to all email messages in the subset of the plurality of email messages in the conversation of the plurality of conversations regardless of the folders in which the subset of the plurality of email messages reside, unless the indication from the user includes an instruction that the action should apply only to a smaller subset of email messages in the subset of the plurality of email messages in select folders, in which case the action will apply to only the smaller subset of the email messages of the conversation in the select folders.

9. The method of claim 8, where a system default specifies to which folders to apply the action.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein a user preference specifies to which folders to apply the action.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein an explicit user action specifies to which folders to apply the action.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein performing the action comprises:

for all messages in the conversation that are in folders to which the action applies,

retrieving message objects associated with the messages; and

modifying the message objects associated with the messages to reflect the action.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the action is moving the conversation to a select folder.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the action is tagging the conversation.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the indication from the user includes an instruction that the action apply to messages in the conversation associated with one of the following folder options:

all folders in the conversation;

all folders in the conversation except for folders associated with trash and spam; and

all folders in the conversation except for folders associated with trash, spam, and sent items.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein grouping email messages into conversations comprises:

normalizing a subject of an incoming message;

determining whether or not an open conversation exists for the normalized subject;

in response to an open conversation not existing with respect to the normalized subject, creating a new open conversation for the normalized subject and associating the incoming message with the new open conversation; and

in response to an open conversation existing for the normalized subject, associating the incoming message with the existing open conversation.

17. A method for performing an action upon an email conversation comprising:

grouping a plurality of email messages residing in a plurality of folders into a plurality of conversations, where the grouping is performed independent of the plurality of folders in which the plurality of email messages reside, thereby enabling the plurality of conversations to span multiple of the plurality of folders;

receiving a search query from a user;

performing a search for a subset of the plurality of email messages satisfying the search query;

displaying search results from the search, including a subset of the plurality of conversations including the subset of the plurality of email messages satisfying the search query;

receiving an indication from the user to perform an action upon at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations; and

performing the action upon the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations, wherein the action is applied to all messages in the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations satisfying the search query regardless of the plurality of folders in which all messages in the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations reside unless the indication from the user includes an instruction that the action should apply only to messages in select ones of the plurality of folders, in which case the action will apply to only a subset of the plurality of messages in the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations satisfying the search query that are in the select ones of the plurality of folders.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the action is moving the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations to a select folder.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein grouping email messages into conversations comprises:

normalizing a subject of an incoming message;

determining whether or not an open conversation exists for the normalized subject;

in response to an open conversation not existing with respect to the normalized subject, creating a new open conversation for the normalized subject and associating the incoming message with the new open conversation; and

in response to an open conversation existing for the normalized subject, associating the incoming message with such existing open conversation.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the action is tagging the at least one of the subset of the plurality of conversations.