Email Attachment Storage Selection via Shared Online Location
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing email attachment handling technologies are inefficient in managing large file attachments, as they often require sending large files separately to multiple recipients, wasting resources and delaying receipt, and fail to adapt to recipient-specific storage needs or security levels.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that stores user preferences for online storage locations, extracts sender and recipient details, and selects a common storage location based on security levels, creating a directory and uploading the attachment while adding its address to the email message, with options for account creation or public storage if no common location exists.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If large attachment files are sent separately to each recipient, then each recipient receives the complete file, but network bandwidth is wasted and transmission time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple identical attachment files into a single shared online storage location, allowing all recipients to access the same file rather than receiving separate copies. This eliminates redundant network transmission while ensuring complete file delivery to all recipients.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary online storage service as a mediator between the sender and recipients. The attachment is uploaded once to this intermediary service, and all recipients access it through generated links, reducing network bandwidth consumption while maintaining delivery reliability.
2Reliability
If large attachment files are sent separately to each recipient, then each recipient receives the complete file, but transmission time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple file transmission operations into a single upload operation to shared online storage. The sender uploads the attachment once rather than repeatedly to each recipient, dramatically reducing transmission time while ensuring all recipients receive complete files through link access.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-uploading the attachment to shared online storage before the email sending process. This allows the email to contain only a lightweight link rather than the actual file, enabling near-instantaneous delivery to multiple recipients while maintaining file completeness.
3Reliability
If a common online storage location is selected based on user preferences and security levels, then storage security is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically selects appropriate shared online storage locations by comparing recipient email domains against stored user preferences and security level mappings. This self-service approach maintains high storage security while minimizing perceived system complexity for users, as no manual configuration is needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of storage location selection from manual user choice to automated selection based on email domain and security level parameters. This maintains security requirements while simplifying the user interface, as the system handles the complexity of matching security parameters automatically.
4Adaptability or versatility
If user preferences for online storage locations are stored and compared, then storage adaptability is improved, but data processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by pre-storing user preferences, email domain mappings, and security level associations in a database during system setup. When sending emails, the system only needs to perform simple lookups and comparisons against this pre-processed data, maintaining high adaptability while minimizing processing time during actual email operations.
Data Source
AI summary
When an email server has a message from a sender to multiple recipients with an attachment file, an attachment application is activated. The attachment application stores preferences of email users for online storage locations. The method carried out extracts details of an email sender and recipients for the email message to be sent with an attachment file and compares the email sender and recipients with the stored preferences for online storage locations to select a common online storage location for the sender and recipients. A directory is created at the common online storage location for uploading the attachment file to the selected online storage location and the address of the attachment file at the selected online storage location is added to the email message. If a common online storage location is not available, a new account can be generated for the recipients at an online storage location.