Dropbox, Inc.

Steven Kabbes

Sean Beausoleil

Michael Roeder

Adam Cue

David Barshow

George Milton Underwood, Iv

Anthony DeVincenzi

Jack Dubie

Tim Van Damme

Belinda Preno

Andrew Steven Long

Steven Flory

Scott Cannon

Ringo Law

Kevin Ewe

George Milton Underwood Iv

A message management service allows a user to access and manage messages from various message services. The user can access the message management service using a message management client application executing on a client device and can draft messages using the message management client application and send the messages through the different message services. The message management service can add information to messages sent using the message management client application that can be used to identify and organize the messages. A secure sent-message identifier can be added to messages sent by the message management service to reliably indicate that the messages were sent by the message management service.

Secure sent message identifier

Techniques are described for managing, drafts of an electronic document (e.g., an electronic note, an electronic message, an electronic calendar invitation, and/or other types of electronic documents) between client devices. Such an electronic document can be composed using different clients, such that composing the document can be continued using different clients. A draft of an electronic document can be stored by clients and/or the message management service as a metadata. A message management service can be implemented as an intermediary computing system to manage a current version of a draft in local storage when a draft is composed using a client device. The message management service can manage version information of a draft that is exists, if any, on each of the client devices. The message management service can synchronize a draft of the message with client devices when a draft is composed using a client device.

Managing drafts of electronic documents across client devices

Techniques are described for managing drafts of an electronic document (e.g., an electronic note, an electronic message, an electronic calendar invitation, and/or other types of electronic documents) between client devices. Such an electronic document can be composed using different clients, such that composing the document can be continued using different clients. A draft of an electronic document can be stored by clients and/or the message management service as a metadata. A message management service can be implemented as an intermediary computing system to manage a current version of a draft in local storage when a draft is composed using a client device. The message management service can manage version information of a draft that is exists, if any, on each of the client devices. The message management service can synchronize a draft of the message with client devices when a draft is composed using a client device.

Certain embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for serializing account and message management actions performed at a message management service for synchronization with a messaging service. A message management service can receive requests from a client device and/or a messaging service to perform actions on resources for an email message account. The actions can include account-related actions, folder-related actions, message thread-related actions, and/or message-related actions. Message management service can implement techniques for serializing actions that conflict, such as actions on a resource (e.g., a message account, a message, a folder, or a message thread) that conflict with other actions on the same resource and/or other resources that have a dependency relationship. By performing serialization, message management service can prevent conflicting actions from being performed concurrently, while enabling non-conflicting actions to be performed in parallel, thereby improving performance for execution of actions.

Context aware serialization

A system and method for synchronizing messages between client application instances and a message service provider includes a connection service communicatively coupled to a plurality of client messaging application instances; a first intermediary transfer layer with an inbound message data queue that queues message updates of a client application instance and an outbound message data queue that queues message updates and notifications from a mailbox service layer; a mailbox service layer communicatively coupled to the connection service through the first intermediary transfer layer; a second intermediary transfer layer with an mailbox message data queue that contains queued message data directed at the mailbox service layer and a message service data queue that contains queued message updates directed at a message service layer; and a message service layer configured for message interactions with an outside message service provider.

System and method for serving a message client

A message management service that acts as intermediary between a messaging service and a client device can generate a synchronization data bundle for a message that includes an external message identifier usable to retrieve the message from the messaging service. The message management service can send the synchronization data bundle to the client along with the message, and the client can store the synchronization data bundle for each message in its local data store. The client can later return the synchronization data bundle to the message management service, which can use information contained therein to facilitate synchronization and related operations.

Distributed synchronization data in a message management service

Message management services can include processing an email to identify relevant content from among all content in the email and converting the identified relevant content into a simple, easy-to-read format. For example, message management services can apply multiple parsing strategies to an email. Each strategy can attempt to parse the email to identify relevant content and to output results that include any identified relevant content and an associated confidence score. The results having the highest confidence score can be selected. The identified relevant content included in the selected results can be converted into a flat string with stylings and links for displaying relevant content of the email in a simple, easy-to-read format.

Identifying relevant content in email

Users of a message management service can collaborate to draft a message to a designated recipient. One user can create a draft message and identify one or more other users to collaborate on the draft. The users become authors of the draft, and the draft becomes available to each user through a drafts folder maintained for that user by the service. The users can each edit the draft. The message management service can send the draft as a message to the recipient when one or more of the collaborating users indicates that the draft should be sent. The message can include an indication that it is a collaborative message from all of the authors.

Collaborative drafting of a message

Systems and methods for identifying threads of related messages. A computer can associate messages with threads by storing a thread identifier (thread ID) identifying a thread and associating the thread ID with a message identifier (message ID) of each known message that belongs to the thread. The computer can inspect a message to determine whether the message identifies a reference message. Before assigning a thread ID to the message or a reference message, the computer can determine whether a message ID for either message is stored in association with a thread ID. If a thread ID is stored for a message ID of either message, the computer can assign the thread ID to message IDs of other reference messages. If a thread ID is not stored for a message ID of either message or is different for either message, store a common thread ID in association with both messages.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Steven Kabbes