Selective information synchronization based on implicit user designation

A method for synchronizing subsets of an e-mail folder hierarchy between a server computer and a client computer, the method comprising:

• defining one or more predetermined user actions that implicitly demonstrate a user's desire to synchronize particular folders of the e-mail folder hierarchy between the server and client computers;
• associating a synchronization flag in the client computer with parents of folders to be synchronized upon recognition of the predetermined user action;
• and
• synchronizing the subfolders of folders associated with the synchronization flags in the client computer, whereby synchronization of the subset of folders is accomplished without explicit designation of the subset by the user.

A computer program storage medium readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process in an e-mail system at a client computer, the computer process synchronizing subsets of an e-mail folder hierarchy between a server computer and the client computer, the computer process comprising:

• defining one or more predetermined user actions that demonstrate a user's implicit desire to synchronize particular folders of first and second e-mail folder hierarchies;
• comparing actual user actions to the predetermined user actions to determine which of the particular folders are selected for synchronization;
• associating a synchronization flag with each of the particular folders in the second e-mail folder hierarchy if the actual user action corresponds to the predetermined user action;
• and
• synchronizing subfolders of the folders of the second e-mail folder hierarchy having the synchronization flags set with the first e-mail folder hierarchy.

A computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions to execute a computer process for synchronizing particular folders in first and second e-mail folder hierarchies of a server computer and a handheld computer respectively, the computer process comprising:

• providing one or more predetermined user actions that demonstrate a user's implicit desire to synchronize the particular folders of the first and second e-mail folder hierarchies;
• assigning a synchronization flag to each of the particular folders in the second e-mail folder hierarchy that are associated with a user's execution of the predetermined user action on the handheld computer;
• and
• synchronizing subfolders of the folders of the second e-mail folder hierarchy having the synchronization flags set with the first e-mail folder hierarchy.

An apparatus for synchronizing subsets of an e-mail folder hierarchy between a server computer and a client computer, the apparatus in the client computer comprising:

• a user action definition module defining one or more predetermined user actions that implicitly demonstrate a user's desire to synchronize particular folders of the e-mail folder hierarchy between the server computer and the client computer;
• a monitor module monitoring actual user actions and the one or more predetermined user actions, and identifying an action correlation upon recognition of a correlation between the actual user actions and the one or more predetermined user actions;
• a synchronization assignment module assigning a synchronization identifier to each of the particular folders in the client computer associated with the action correlation;
• a synchronization module synchronizing a subset of the e-mail folder hierarchy comprising subfolders of the particular folders to which a synchronization identifier has been assigned.