Method and system for display of electronic mail

A method comprising:

• creating a message collection viewing cascade including a plurality of viewing levels for presenting at least one of one or more message threads and abbreviated forms of one or more messages which are associated with one or more message threads, wherein each viewing level in the collection viewing cascade offers a different de ee of detail for presenting the abbreviated forms of the one or more messages;
• abbreviating at least one of the messages associated with one of the message threads using one of a plurality of abbreviation techniques, wherein each abbreviation technique specifies a manner in which the messages can be abbreviated;
• and
• formatting each abbreviated message to be displayed at one of the plurality of viewing levels in the message collection viewing cascade.

A method comprising:

• creating a plurality of message threads;
• sorting the message threads based upon a number of messages in each message thread;
• and
• formatting the sorted message threads to be displayed at one or more of a plurality of viewing levels in a collection viewing cascade, wherein each viewing level in the collection viewing cascade offers a different degree of detail for presenting abbreviated forms of the message threads, wherein the abbreviated forms of the message threads are abbreviated in accordance with at least one type of electronic mail message abbreviation that specifies a maimer in which electronic mail messages in the electronic mail collection can be abbreviated.