System and method for enabling an external-system view of email attachments

Abstract

A method and email application enable email attachments to be viewed through a system external to the email application itself in accordance with select categories. The email application creates categories and categorizes the email attachments according to such categories. The email application then maps the categories into a format understandable by the external system for category information and provides the mapped categories to the external system in such format. In response to receiving a request from the external system for the contents of one of the mapped categories and in response to such category having no further subcategories, the email application identifies the email attachments under such category and maps the identified email attachments to file names. The file names are then provided to the external system as the contents of such category. If the external system requests the contents of a category that has further subcategories, the email application maps the subcategories into a format understandable to the external system and provides such subcategories to the external system as the contents of such category. The present invention can be used to provide a file-system view of email attachments. In such case, the email application appears as a file system to the operating system of an email user's computer. The created categories are provided to the operating system as the 'folders' in the file system. The email attachments are provided as files within such folders.