System for displaying electronic mail metadata and related methods

A method of displaying electronic mail (email) metadata, the method comprising:

• using a processor and memory cooperating therewith to display, on a display, a reference icon,
• extract the email metadata from a plurality of unread emails stored in the memory, the email metadata comprising an email sender, the email sender having a priority associated therewith,
• associate each unread email from the plurality thereof with an icon visually conveying respective email metadata for the associated unread email,
• determine at least one icon display characteristic for each icon based upon the extracted email metadata, the at least one icon display characteristic comprising an icon display position on the display,
• display, on the display, each icon with the at least one icon display characteristic,
• for each icon, update the icon display position over time at a given time interval to be closer to the reference icon at a rate based upon the priority of the email sender so that upon each update, an icon associated with a higher priority email sender approaches the reference icon at a higher rate than icons associated with lower priority email senders,
• display, on the display, the at least one icon with the at least one updated icon display characteristic, and
• remove from the display, an icon based upon the associated unread email being read.

A non-transitory computer readable medium for displaying electronic mail (email) metadata, the non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• displaying, on a display, a reference icon;
• extracting the email metadata from a plurality of unread emails stored in a memory coupled to the processor, the email metadata comprising an email sender, the email sender having a priority associated therewith;
• associating each unread email from the plurality thereof with an icon visually conveying respective email metadata for the associated unread email;
• determining at least one icon display characteristic for each icon based upon the extracted email metadata, the at least one icon display characteristic comprising an icon display position on the display;
• displaying, on the display, each icon with the at least one icon display characteristic;
• for each icon, updating the icon display position over time at a given time interval to be closer to the reference icon at a rate based upon the priority of the email sender so that upon each update, an icon associated with a higher priority email sender approaches the reference icon at a higher rate than icons associated with lower priority email senders;
• displaying, on the display, the at least one icon with the at least one updated icon display characteristic;
• and
• remove from the display, an icon based upon the associated unread email being read.