JPH1083361A - Email system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] When the same user reads mail from a plurality of terminals to a single e-mail server, the user recognizes a mail already read on one terminal as a read mail on another terminal. thing. When a user accesses an e-mail server from a terminal A and reads out an e-mail, the user transmits a control e-mail that describes an identifier unique to each e-mail included in the received e-mail to the user. When the user accesses the e-mail server from the terminal B and reads out the mail, the control mail is transmitted again to the user himself / herself, while the control mail transmitted from the terminal A is detected and the terminal is identified from the described mail identifier. It becomes possible to recognize the e-mail already read in A, and only the real unread e-mail is displayed and browsed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an electronic mail system, and more particularly to an electronic mail system in which the same person accesses a single electronic mail server from a plurality of terminals to receive an electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and POP3 (Post O
In an e-mail system using ffice Protocol-Version 3), after a user accesses an e-mail server and receives an e-mail, the storage system on the e-mail server should not be used for unnecessary e-mail data.
It is customary to delete the mail data immediately.

For this reason, conventionally, in an environment in which the same user accesses a single e-mail server from a plurality of terminals to receive mail, each mail is stored only in the terminal that has received the mail, and as a whole the mail is received. Was scattered to multiple terminals, which hindered storing and managing received mail.

[0004] In order to prevent the mail from being scattered to a plurality of terminals, there is the following electronic mail application. In other words, when a user accesses an e-mail server from a specific terminal that stores and manages all e-mails addressed to him and receives e-mail, the user deletes the e-mail data on the e-mail server. Various settings can be made so as not to delete the mail data on the e-mail server when a mail is received from a terminal other than.

[0005]

On the other hand, in the electronic mail system of the Internet, a mail which has been read by a user (hereinafter, referred to as read mail) and a mail which has not been read (hereinafter, referred to as unread mail). Identification is not managed by the email server, but is left to the management of the user and the email application used by the user.

Therefore, when reading mail from a plurality of terminals to a single electronic mail server as described above,
Each mail is judged as unread mail for each terminal, and each time the user accesses the e-mail server from one terminal and tries to read the newly arrived mail, the mail already read on other terminals is also unread There was a problem that it was displayed as mail.

To solve the above problems, for example, a so-called personal computer communication service (commercial BBS (Bulletin
Board System) etc., an email system that manages unread / read emails on the email server side is conceivable. However, this method requires replacement of the entire e-mail system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems, and has as its object to provide a single server that does not manage the identification of unread mail and read mail from a plurality of terminals. In the form of accessing an e-mail server and receiving e-mail, the e-mail that has already been read on one terminal can be read by another e-mail application without changing the conventional e-mail server. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic mail system that can be recognized as a read mail by any terminal.

[0009]

In order to achieve this object, an electronic mail system according to the first aspect of the present invention comprises a mail delivery requesting means 1 for sending a mail from an electronic mail server to a terminal, as shown in FIG. When distribution is requested, the mail receiving means 2 receives a mail group distributed from the electronic mail server to the terminal in response to the mail distribution request. The control mail detecting means 3 converts the control mail, which is a mail transmitted from the mail address itself that has received the mail group and describes identification information for identifying each received mail, of the received mail group. Detect from inside. When the new mail detection means 4 determines that the mail other than the mail specified from the identification information described in the detected control mail is a new mail, the mail display means 5 displays the detected new mail. Further, the control mail transmitting means 6 transmits a control mail describing the identification information of the received mail to the mail address itself which has received the mail group.

In the electronic mail system according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, whether or not the distributed electronic mail data is to be deleted from the electronic mail server is set by the mail deletion specifying means 7, and the deletion is performed. If so, the mail deletion requesting means 8 requests the electronic mail server to delete the distributed electronic mail from the electronic mail server.

In the electronic mail system according to the third aspect, the mail distribution request means 1 can request the electronic mail server to distribute all or a part of an arbitrary mail.

The electronic mail system according to the fourth aspect of the present invention provides a mail distribution request in conjunction with a condition set in the mail deletion designating means 7 to determine whether or not the distributed electronic mail data is to be deleted from the electronic mail server. Means 1 changes the procedure for requesting delivery of all or part of any mail.

In the electronic mail system according to the present invention, the mail display means does not display the mail detected as the control mail by the control mail detection means.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a situation in which the same person accesses a single e-mail server 10 from a plurality of terminals (terminals 11 and 12) as assumed by the present invention. As a situation in which the same person accesses a single electronic mail server from a plurality of terminals, a situation in which the same person accesses from an office, a home, or an outside place using a portable terminal can be considered.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration in a case where an electronic mail server 50 is accessed from two terminals, a terminal A30 and a terminal B40. The terminal A30, the terminal B40, and the e-mail server 50 are mutually connected by the signal line 20.

The terminal A 30 includes a mail distribution requesting unit 1, a mail receiving unit 2, a control mail detecting unit 3, a new mail detecting unit 4, a control mail transmitting unit 6, a mail deletion specifying unit 7, and a mail deletion requesting unit 8. ROM 33 containing a program that realizes each function on a computer
And a CPU 32 for executing the program, a RAM 34 used as a storage area for setting values (MAIL_DEL) by the mail deletion specifying means 7 and other general-purpose work areas, selecting unread mail to be viewed, and the like.
A keyboard 46 used when a user gives an instruction to the CPU 32, an I / O 37 for transmitting / receiving a signal such as mail from the signal line 20, a display device 35 as the mail display means 5, and a bus connecting these components 31.

The terminal B40 has the same configuration as the terminal A30, and has a bus 41, a CPU 42, a ROM 43, a RAM 44,
It comprises a display device 45, a keyboard 46, and an I / O 47.

The e-mail server 50 is a ROM having a built-in computer program for realizing a function for distributing mail in response to a mail distribution request from a terminal.
53, a CPU 52 for executing the program, a RAM 54 used as a work area, an I / O 57 for transmitting / receiving a signal such as a mail from the signal line 20, and an e-mail for delivering a mail to the terminals A30 and B40. HDD 5 as an area for temporarily storing mail on server 50 (hereinafter referred to as a mailbox)
8 and a bus 51 connecting these.

FIG. 5 to FIG. 11 are diagrams showing the flow of the embodiment. FIG. 5, FIG. 6 and FIG.
Step 13 (hereinafter abbreviated as S13) and S6
5 are shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 in S17 and S66.
9 is a detailed flow of FIG. 9 and a detailed flow of S22 is FIG.
0 is shown.

FIGS. 12 and 13 show the terminal A30 and the terminal B40 shown in FIG.
Is a diagram for explaining a procedure for accessing an e-mail server 50, detecting an unread mail, receiving and displaying the unread mail.

FIG. 14 is a diagram hierarchically showing each element constituting the mail. The elements constituting the mail 60 are roughly divided into mail additional information 61 sometimes called a mail header and a mail body 62. As shown in FIG. 14, the mail additional information 61 includes a message identifier 63 unique to each mail, a mail sender 6
4. Sending time 65, mail recipient 66, reception time 67, which is the time when the e-mail server 50 received the mail and stored it in the mailbox 58, and a title used to express the contents of the mail body 62 68 and the like. In the mail body 62, a message 69 transmitted from the sender of the mail to the receiver is described.

It should be noted that the configuration of the mail of the present invention can be considered similarly as long as there is identification information capable of identifying individual mails, other than the configuration of the present embodiment.

In the following, mainly referring to FIGS. 12 and 13,
The present embodiment will be described with the steps in FIGS. 12 and 13 corresponding to the flows shown in FIGS. 5 to 11.

As a method of transmitting and receiving mail between an electronic mail server and a terminal, for example, SMTP and POP3 are known on the Internet, and the method of transmitting and receiving is not the main requirement of the present invention. Description is omitted.

First, No. 1 (hereinafter abbreviated as N1 or the like), the mails existing in the mailbox 58 of the e-mail server 50 immediately before the terminal A30 starts accessing the mails are stored in the order of the oldest reception time 67 of the mail additional information 61.
They are indicated as a, b, c and d. The title shown in N1 or the like is the title included in the mail additional information 61,
In the present embodiment, the mail is used to identify each mail together with alphabets such as a and b. Also, the terminal A30 stores in the e-mail server 5 the distributed mail specified by the user using the keyboard 36 in accordance with a predetermined procedure of the program.
A setting value (hereinafter, referred to as a mail deletion setting value or MAIL_DEL) as to whether or not to delete from the top is set to “do not delete delivered mail” and is stored in RAM 34.

In S1 of FIG. 5, the mail deletion setting value (MAI
L_DEL) is obtained from the RAM 34, and the set value is checked in S2. If the mail deletion setting value is “do not delete the delivered mail”, go to S3 (details are shown in FIG. 6).
If "delete the delivered mail", the process branches to S4 (details are shown in FIG. 11). In the terminal A30, the mail deletion setting value is “do not delete the delivered mail”
Therefore, the processing of S3 is executed.

N2 corresponds to S10 in FIG.
0 issues a request to the electronic mail server 50 to distribute the mail additional information of all mails. N3 corresponds to S11 in FIG. 6, and the electronic mail server 50 distributes the mail additional information of the four mails indicated by N1 to the terminal A30 in response to the mail distribution request. N4 corresponds to S12 in FIG. 6, and the terminal A30 receives the mail additional information of the four mails.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing elements of the control mail (b) stored in the mail box 58 in the same configuration as in FIG. The control mail has a specific form so that the terminal A30 or the like can easily identify it as a normal mail. That is, the title 78 in the mail additional information 71 is a character string “Control Message”. Also, the message 79 of the mail body 72 includes “A001 @ yamad” which is a character string indicated by the message identifier 63 of the already received mail (a) 60 (shown in FIG. 14).
a "is written.

It should be noted that the form of the control mail can be considered in the same manner even if it is based on a rule set in advance so that the terminal A30 or the like can recognize that the control mail is a control mail.

Further, in the present embodiment, the message identifier 6 is used as identification information for identifying each mail.
3 is used, for example, the title 68
Similarly, it is conceivable to combine a plurality of elements constituting the mail into identification information, such as a combination of the first 50 characters of the message 69.

N5 corresponds to S13 in FIG.
0 detects the latest control mail from the four pieces of additional mail information received. In order to detect the control mail, for example, from among all the received mail additional information (S30 in FIG. 7 and S35 in FIG. 8), the title is “Control Message”.
e ”(S36 in FIG. 8), and the sender of the mail is the same as the recipient (S37 in FIG. 8).
Should be checked. To detect the latest control mail, the reception time of the mail additional information is compared (S in FIG. 7).
31). With the above operation, the latest control mail (b) is detected.

N6 corresponds to S14 in FIG.
0 issues a request for distribution of all data of the latest control mail (b) to the electronic mail server 50. N7 is shown in FIG.
The electronic mail server 50 distributes the mail (b) to the terminal A30 in response to the mail distribution request. N8 corresponds to S16 in FIG. 6, and the terminal A30 receives the mail (b).

N9 corresponds to S17 in FIG.
0 detects an unread mail from the four pieces of additional mail information received, and displays a list of the titles. To detect an unread mail, for example, the control mail (b) is excluded from all the received mail additional information a, b, c, d (S40 in FIG. 9) (S41 in FIG. 9), and S7 The message identifier "A001 @ yamada" described in the message 79 of the latest control mail (b) 70 (shown in FIG. 15) received at
Is excluded (S42 in FIG. 9). The remaining mails c and d are regarded as unread mails, and a list of titles is displayed on the display device 35 (S43 in FIG. 9).

When detecting and displaying an unread mail, the control mail may be detected and displayed like a normal mail.

N10 corresponds to S18 of FIG. 6, and the terminal A30 issues a request for distribution of all data of the unread mail (d) selected by the user from the displayed list of titles to the e-mail server 50. N11 corresponds to S19 in FIG.
The electronic mail server 50 distributes the mail (d) to the terminal A30 in response to the mail distribution request. N12
Corresponds to S20 in FIG. 6, and the terminal A30 sends the mail (d)
To receive. N13 corresponds to S21 in FIG.
30 displays the mail (d) on the display device 35.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing elements of the mail (d) 80 in the same configuration as in FIG. Email (d) 80
Has "A003 @ yamada" as the message identifier 83 of the mail additional information 81.

N14 corresponds to S22 in FIG.
30 creates and transmits a control mail (e) in which information that the mails a and d have been read is described. That is, terminal A30
Is the content of the message “A001 @ yamad” of the message 79 of the latest control mail (b) 70 as the content of the control mail message.
"a" is copied (S50 in FIG. 10), and the content "A003 @ yamada" of the message identifier 83 of the mail (d) 80 received from the electronic mail server 50 is added (S51 in FIG. 10). Further, a control mail is created with the title "Control Message" (S52 in FIG. 10) and transmitted to itself (the transmission mail address of the control mail itself) (FIG. 1).
0, after step S53), the terminal A30
The access to 0 is terminated. In S23 of FIG. 6, the e-mail server 50 receives the control mail, and five mails a, b, c, d, and e exist in the mailbox 58 of the e-mail server 50 as indicated by N14.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing elements of the control mail (e) in the same configuration as in FIG. Control mail (e)
The title 98 in the 90 additional mail information 91 is “Control
Message ”. The message 99 of the mail text 92 includes “A001 @ yamada” which is a character string indicated by the message identifier 63 of the already received mail (a) 60 (shown in FIG. 14), and the mail (d). "A003 @ yamada" which is a character string indicated by the message identifier 83 of 80 (shown in FIG. 16) is described.

In N15, after the access of the terminal A30 is completed, the electronic mail server 50 sends the new mail "f.
"Title = new mail" is received and stored in the mailbox 58. As a result, there are six mails a, b, c, d, e, and f in the mail box 58. In the terminal B 40, the mail deletion setting value (MAIL_DEL) specified by the user using the keyboard 46 in advance in accordance with a predetermined procedure of the program is set to “delete the distributed mail” and stored in the RAM 44. Have been.

In S1 of FIG. 5, the mail deletion setting value (MAI
L_DEL) is obtained from the RAM 44, and its set value is checked in S2. At the terminal B40, the process of S4 is executed because the mail deletion setting value is "delete the delivered mail".

N16 corresponds to S60 in FIG. 11, and the terminal B40 issues a distribution request for all mail data of all mails to the electronic mail server 50. N17 is shown in FIG.
In response to this mail distribution request, the electronic mail server 50 distributes all the data of the six mails indicated by N15 to the terminal B40. N18 is S in FIG.
62, and the terminal B40 receives all the data of these six mails.

N19 corresponds to S63 in FIG. 11, and the terminal B40 requests the electronic mail server 50 to delete the data of the received six mails. In S64, the e-mail server 50 deletes the data of the six mails specified from the terminal B40.

N20 corresponds to S65 in FIG.
Using the same method as in (S13), the terminal B40 detects the latest control mail (e) from the received six mails. The difference between N20 and N5 is whether the received mail data is partial (only the mail additional information in N5) or all. However, the method of detecting the latest control mail shown in FIGS. This is a method that can be detected only by information, and can be used commonly by both.

N21 corresponds to S66 in FIG.
Using the same method as in (S17), unread mails c and f are detected from the six mails received by terminal B40 using the identification information of the latest control mail (e) detected in S65. Is displayed on the display device 45. Although there is a difference between N21 and N9 whether the received mail data is partial (only the mail additional information in N9) or all, the method of detecting unread mail shown in FIG. -A method that can be detected only with the latest control mail that has been received, and can be used commonly by both.

N22 corresponds to S67 in FIG. 11, and the terminal B40 displays the unread mail (f) selected by the user from the displayed list of titles on the display device 45.

At N23, the mailbox 5 on the electronic mail server 50 after the access of the terminal B40 is completed.
8 indicates an existing mail. In N19, the e-mail server 50 has deleted the six mails requested to be deleted from the terminal B40, and no mail data exists in the mailbox 58.

It is also conceivable that the old control mail stored in the mailbox of the electronic mail server is deleted every time the control mail is transmitted from the terminal.

Also, when creating a control mail, only the identification information of the newly received mail is described, and when detecting an unread mail, it is described in all the control mails existing in the mailbox of the electronic mail server. It is also conceivable to refer to the identified identification information.

[0050]

As is apparent from the above description, the electronic mail system according to the first aspect of the present invention is a conventional electronic mail system using SMTP and POP3 widely used on the Internet. The same person can access a single e-mail server from multiple terminals by changing only the e-mail application used on the terminal without changing the server and sending control mail to the sender when receiving e-mail Also, when receiving an e-mail, it is possible to always display only the unread e-mail on any terminal.

In the electronic mail system according to the second aspect, the distributed electronic mail is deleted from the electronic mail server to reduce the number of mails present in the electronic mail server, so that the terminal sends the electronic mail to the electronic mail server. At the next access, it is possible to reduce the time required for the email application to detect a control email or an unread email from the delivered emails, so that the user does not have to wait a long time before displaying the unread email. .

The electronic mail system according to the third aspect first receives only the mail additional information which is a part of the mail, presents a list of the titles of the unread mails to the user, and displays all the mail data for only the mail selected by the user. Is received, it is possible to receive only the mail desired by the user in a minimum communication time, even when the communication speed of the signal line is low like a modem used in a portable terminal or the like.

In the electronic mail system according to the fourth aspect, by setting whether or not the electronic mail distributed according to the purpose of the terminal is deleted from the electronic mail server, it is possible to efficiently distribute the electronic mail. .

For example, an auxiliary terminal such as a portable terminal first issues a distribution request for only the mail additional information,
After presenting the list of unread e-mail titles to the user, issue a distribution request for all e-mail data only for the e-mail selected by the user, and to prevent e-mails addressed to the user from being scattered to multiple terminals. Do not delete the e-mail on the e-mail server. On the other hand, the main terminal issues a distribution request for all data of all the mails from the beginning, displays only unread mails to the user, and deletes the distributed e-mails from the e-mail server. The main terminal will be able to store and manage all mail addressed to you. Also, since all e-mails in the e-mail server are deleted, the next time the terminal accesses the e-mail server from each terminal, the time required for the e-mail application to detect control mail and unread mail from the delivered e-mails Can be reduced.

In the electronic mail system according to the fifth aspect, since the control mail is not displayed on the display device, the user does not have to see the display of the useless control mail.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram in which a single electronic mail server is accessed from a plurality of terminals assumed by the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a flow of the embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating a procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a data configuration of a mail according to the embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of a control mail according to the embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a data structure of a mail according to the embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example of a control mail according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 30 terminal A 32 CPU 33 ROM 34 RAM 35 display device 36 keyboard 37 I / O 40 terminal B 42 CPU 43 ROM 44 RAM 45 display device 46 keyboard 47 I / O 50 e-mail server

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A mail delivery requesting means for requesting delivery of mail from an electronic mail server to a terminal, and receiving a mail for receiving a mail group delivered from the electronic mail server to the terminal in response to the mail delivery request. A control mail detecting means for detecting, from the mail group, a control mail in which the sender is the mail address itself that has received the mail group and describes identification information capable of identifying each received mail. Means, a new mail detecting means for determining a mail other than the mail specified by the identification information described in the control mail detected by the control mail detecting means as a new mail, and a new mail detected by the new mail detecting means. Mail display means to be displayed, and control mail to send control mail describing identification information of newly received mail Electronic mail system is characterized in that a signal means. 2. A mail deletion designating means capable of designating whether or not a delivered e-mail is to be deleted from the e-mail server. 2. The e-mail system according to claim 1, further comprising: a mail deletion request unit that requests the e-mail server to delete the e-mail from the e-mail server. 3. The electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein said mail distribution request means can request distribution of all or a part of an arbitrary mail. 4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the mail delivery requesting unit changes a procedure for requesting delivery of all or a part of an arbitrary mail according to a condition specified by the mail deletion specifying unit. Email system. 5. The electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein said mail display means does not display a control mail.