Email mailbox management with sender-specific message lists
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsScott Forstall, Terry Blanchard, Daniel Shteremberg, Angela Guzman, Stephen Lemay, Phillip Tao, Chris Lindsay, Ashley Clark
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive an instruction to establish a rule to take an action on each email message received from a first email address, determine that the first email address is associated with contact data, determine that the contact data is associated with a second email address, and apply the rule to take the action on each email message received from the second email address.
Claims20
A computer-implemented method of managing an email mailbox, the method comprising:
- receiving, by a computer, a user input designating a first email address as a priority contact;
- and
- in response to the user input:
- determining, by the computer, that the first email address is included in a contact record that also includes a sender name;
- adding, by the computer, the sender name to a list of priority contacts for the user, wherein the list of priority contacts includes only contacts designated by the user as priority contacts;
- determining, by the computer, that the contact record also includes a second email address;
- generating, by the computer, a listing of email messages sent from the sender name, the listing including every email message received by the computer from either of the first or second email addresses;
- and
- presenting, by the computer, a user interface that includes a control object selectable by the user to view the listing of email messages from the sender name.
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processing device to perform a method comprising:
- receiving a user input designating a first email address as a priority contact;
- and
- in response to the user input:
- determining that the first email address is included in a contact record that also includes a sender name and a second email address;
- adding the sender name to a list of priority contacts for the user, wherein the list of priority contacts includes only contacts designated by the user as priority contacts;
- generating a listing of email messages sent from the sender name, the listing including every email message received by the computer from either of the first or second email addresses;
- and
- presenting a user interface that includes a control object selectable by the user to view the listing of email messages from the sender name.
A computing system comprising:
- a user interface;
- a memory;
- and
- a processor coupled to the user interface and the memory, the processor configured to:
- receive, via the user interface, a user input designating a first email address as a priority contact;
- determine that the first email address is included in a contact record that also includes a sender name and a second email address;
- responsive to the user input, add the sender name to a list of priority contacts for the user, wherein the list of priority contacts includes only contacts designated by the user as priority contacts;
- generate a listing of email messages sent from the sender name, the listing including every email message received by the computer from either of the first or second email addresses;
- and
- present a user interface that includes a control object selectable by the user to view the listing of email messages from the sender name.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.