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

摘要

A method and system for enabling viewing of email attachments through a system external to the email application itself In one embodiment, the email application creates categories and the email attachments are accordingly categorized. These categories are mapped into a format understandable by the external system, and provided to the external system in such format. In one embodiment, the email application appears as a file system to the operating system of a user's computer. The created categories are provided to the operating system as the “folders” in the file system. In one embodiment, the file system seen by the external system is a virtual file system, and any sub-categories and/or email attachment themselves are provided to the external system upon a specific request.

主权项

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:
receiving, by the email application, an email comprising one or more email attachments, wherein the email and the one or more email attachments are stored in a message store accessible by the email application; creating, based on the one or more email attachments, categories upon which to categorize the one or more email attachments and the email separately in an email system; categorizing the one or more email attachments separately from the email in accordance with the categories, wherein the one or more email attachments remain within the message store; in response to receiving a request from the external system for email attachments associated with one of the categories, identifying any email attachments under the one category by reverse mapping the requested one category to a format applicable to the email application, mapping the email attachments associated with the one category to file names, and using the external system to display the file names as contents of the one category; and in response to a request for an email attachment corresponding to one of the file names, providing the external system contents of the email attachment that corresponds to the one of the file names.