JP2005275490A - Method for managing electronic mail and terminal equipment using the same - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent the deterioration of operability due to shortage of storage capacity at receiving of an electronic mail. <P>SOLUTION: In this terminal equipment 100, electronic mails received from a mail server or the like via a radio part 104 are assigned to a plurality of groups according to predetermined conditions by an assignment processing part 120, and stored in a storage part 122. At the time of detecting the presence of a new incoming mail through communication with an electronic mail server, a mail reception control part 132 notifies a storage managing part 130 of the presence of the new incoming mail and the total capacity of the new incoming mail. A storage managing part which has received the notification calculates the remaining capacity which can be additionally written in the storage part 122 and preferentially erases old electronic mails from among the electronic mails in a group set so as to be erasable, when the residual capacity is insufficient. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an e-mail management technique. In particular, the present invention relates to an e-mail management method in a terminal device whose storage unit capacity is not sufficient, and a terminal device using the same.

  With the development of personal computers, so-called e-mail is becoming commonplace, in which documents are digitized and transmitted / received to / from a specific communication partner via a communication line.

  The e-mail is not only a communication device connected to a conventional fixed line, but also a portable type such as a mobile phone or a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) having a communication function using a wireless line. The number of e-mails that are sent and received is also dramatically increasing due to the convenience of being installed in terminal devices.

  Furthermore, in recent years, as information transmitted and received by e-mail, in addition to document information in a conventional text format, video information such as still images and moving images has been handled, and the amount of information per mail is increasing.

  Under such circumstances, the capacity of the memory for storing e-mails installed in the terminal device is increased according to the type of information handled (for example, still images), but there are restrictions on the circuit scale and terminal price. Therefore, the size is not always sufficient, and in some cases, memory shortage is caused.

Therefore, a technique has been proposed in which an unnecessary e-mail is searched from many received e-mails, and the e-mail is displayed and deleted quickly (for example, see Patent Document 1).
JP 2000-244958 A

  Under such circumstances, the present inventor has come to recognize the following problems.

  In the prior art, in order to make effective use of the limited storage capacity, an e-mail is searched using e-mail reception time or the like as a selection condition, and the e-mail is individually displayed and deleted.

  However, when receiving e-mails, if there is not enough storage capacity for receiving e-mails, it will search, display, and delete e-mails to be deleted one by one to ensure capacity. It is necessary to repeat the process. For example, when a large number of large-volume e-mails with video information attached are concentrated, a situation occurs in which the deletion process cannot be handled.

  The present inventor has recognized the above situation and made the present invention. The purpose of the present inventor is to select an e-mail to be deleted when receiving an e-mail with a limited storage capacity. An object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail management method that ends early and a terminal device using the same.

One embodiment of the present invention is a terminal device.

  The apparatus includes a receiving unit that receives an email from a communication partner, a sorting unit that sorts the received email into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition, and a storage unit that stores the sorted email for each group. An erasability setting unit that sets erasability of the e-mail stored in the storage unit in units of groups, and a total capacity of e-mails to be received when a new e-mail is received by the receiving unit is the storage unit And a storage capacity management unit for erasing the group e-mail set as erasable by the erasability setting unit.

  With the above devices, the terminal device first sorts the received e-mails into a plurality of groups under a predetermined condition according to the importance level of storage, and then sets and stores whether or not deletion is possible for each group. When a new e-mail is received, the remaining capacity that can be added is calculated and control is performed to delete the e-mail of the group that is set to be erasable. Therefore, it is possible to perform an e-mail receiving operation with excellent operability.

  Here, “sorting received e-mails into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition” means that e-mails are sorted using information included in the e-mails. Specifically, there are sorting by e-mail address, sorting by subject, etc., but these are not distinguished here. Also, depending on the setting of sorting (for example, sorting by email address that identifies an individual, etc.), it is empirically known that highly important emails can be collected in a predetermined group, The effect of the present application can be achieved more effectively.

  Another aspect of the present invention is an electronic mail management method.

  In this method, e-mails received from a communication partner are distributed and stored in a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition, and whether or not the e-mail can be erased is set for each stored group, and a new e-mail is received. If the total capacity of the received e-mail exceeds the remaining capacity that can be stored in the storage unit, the group e-mail set as erasable by the erasability setting unit is erased.

  Yet another embodiment of the present invention is a program.

  This program includes a step of receiving a predetermined e-mail from a base station apparatus via a wireless line, a step of distributing the received e-mail into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition, and identifying the group and storing it in a memory And a step of setting whether or not to delete the email for each group in the email stored for each group stored in the memory, and the total capacity of the received email when the email is newly received is stored in the storage unit. A step of erasing the group e-mail set to be erasable by the erasability setting unit when the remaining capacity exceeds the allowable capacity.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described constituent elements and a conversion of the expression of the present invention between a method, an apparatus, a system, a recording medium, a computer program, etc. are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  According to the present invention, more electronic mails can be efficiently managed without performing troublesome processing under a limited storage capacity.

The present embodiment relates to a terminal device that distributes and stores received electronic mails into a plurality of groups in order to more efficiently receive electronic mail addressed to the terminal device that is received by communicating with a mail server.

  The terminal device according to the present embodiment sorts and stores the electronic mail received from the mail server via the base station device into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition. In addition, for each group to which distribution is to be performed, whether or not erasure is possible is set for each group, and when a new e-mail is received, the e-mail of the group set to be erasable is preferentially erased.

  The details will be described below by taking a simple mobile phone system as an example.

  FIG. 1 shows a communication system according to the present embodiment. The communication system 10 includes a terminal device 100, a base station device 200, and a network 300.

  The terminal device 100 includes a terminal antenna 102, a radio unit 104, a modem unit 106, a signal processing unit 108, a voice compression / decompression unit 110, a D / A conversion unit 112, a speaker 114, and a microphone 116. A / D conversion unit 118, distribution processing unit 120, storage unit 122, display unit 124, operation unit 126, instruction setting unit 128, storage management unit 130, mail reception control unit 132, And a control unit 134.

  The terminal antenna 102 transmits and receives radio frequency signals. Note that the terminal antenna 102 may be any of an omnidirectional antenna, a predetermined directional antenna, and an adaptive array antenna, and may have a diversity function.

  In transmission, the radio unit 104 performs D / A conversion on the baseband signal processed by the modem unit 106, converts the frequency to a radio frequency, and then amplifies and transmits the signal from the terminal antenna 102. In reception, the signal input from the terminal antenna 102 is amplified by an LNA (Low Noise Amplifier), then frequency-converted to a baseband frequency, A / D converted, and sent to the modem unit 106. Output as baseband signal.

  The modem unit 106 modulates information to be transmitted and demodulates received information. The simple mobile phone system performs modulation / demodulation processing according to the π / 4 shift QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) method.

  The signal processing unit 108 disassembles and assembles frames at a predetermined timing in order to superimpose information to be transmitted and received in a frame format defined in the wireless section. The simple mobile phone system employs a 4-channel TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) / TDD (Time Division Duplex) system, and multiplexes one control channel and three call channels in a time division manner.

  The audio compression / decompression unit 110 performs mutual conversion between PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio data and ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) audio data in order to compress audio data. Here, ADPCM is an encoding method that compresses the amount of data by using the continuity of sound and transmitting and receiving the difference between the immediately preceding data and the current data. In a simple mobile phone system, a 64-kbit / sec PCM signal is compressed into a 32-kbit / sec ADPCM signal.

  The D / A converter 112 converts the digital audio data received from the base station apparatus 200 and converted from ADPCM to PCM by the audio compression / decompression unit 110 into an analog audio signal.

  The speaker 114 outputs the audio signal analogized by the D / A converter 112 as an audible sound.

  The microphone 116 inputs the operator's voice as an analog voice signal.

  The A / D converter 118 converts an analog audio signal input from the microphone 116 into digital PCM audio data.

  The distribution processing unit 120 receives e-mail data from the data received from the base station apparatus 200 and decomposed by the signal processing unit 108 and distributes the data to a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition. FIG. 2 shows a list of distribution conditions. In the figure, received e-mails are distributed to a plurality of groups 1 to n in accordance with the address of the sender indicated in the “distribution condition”. The column labeled “Group Name” to the right of the group is a heading indicating the group identification when displayed on the display unit 124 described later. In this embodiment, the distribution condition is the sender's e-mail address. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and any item can be used as long as the e-mail can be classified according to a predetermined purpose, such as a title and transmission / reception time.

  The storage unit 122 is configured by a semiconductor memory or the like, and stores the emails distributed to a plurality of groups by the distribution processing unit 120 according to a predetermined condition while distinguishing the groups. FIG. 3 shows the data structure of the e-mail storage area stored in the storage unit 122.

  “Sender” is the email address of the sender that created and sent the email, “Subject” is the title of the email, “Reception date” is the date and time that the terminal device received and processed, “Capacity "Indicates the total size of the electronic mail body and, if any, attached files. “Group” indicates the group identification number of the distribution destination determined according to a predetermined distribution condition, and “Deletability” indicates whether the operator can delete the e-mail set for each group by “Unread”. “Read” indicates whether or not it has been read by the operator.

  Now, returning to FIG. 1, the display unit 124 hierarchically displays the emails stored in the storage unit 122 with the “group name” as a heading. FIG. 4 shows a display configuration on the display unit 124. In this display, the display unit 124 refers to the storage unit 122 and displays the total number of e-mails set to “unread” in “group” units and “deletability” for each group.

  The operation unit 126 receives various instructions for the terminal device 100 from an operator (not shown), and gives instructions to each functional unit through a control line (not shown).

  The instruction setting unit 128 registers operation information for the operation unit 126 by the operator in a corresponding part of the storage unit 122. Specifically, if there is an erasability setting for the group, it is moved to “Eraseability” in the storage unit 122, and if there is a change in unread and read by the e-mail display, it is moved to “unread and read” in the storage unit. register.

  The storage management unit 130 calculates the remaining capacity that can be added to the storage unit 122 by subtracting the total capacity of the stored electronic mail from the total capacity of the storage unit 122. Further, when the mail reception control unit 132 confirms the presence of a new received e-mail, according to the total capacity of the e-mail to be received, the group of which “permitted” is set to “permitted” E-mail is preferentially deleted, and the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 is adjusted.

  The mail reception control unit 132 communicates with a mail server (not shown) via the base station apparatus 200, and performs confirmation of new mail and processing for transmission / reception. These processes are executed, for example, by exchanging POP (Post Office Protocol) messages that are widely used as e-mail reception protocols.

  The control unit 134 performs timing processing of the terminal device 100, execution of various instructions from the operation unit 126, processing of control signals, and the like.

  This configuration can be realized in terms of hardware by a CPU, memory, or other LSI of an arbitrary computer, and in terms of software, it is realized in advance by a program stored in a memory (not shown) and read out at the time of execution. Here, functional blocks realized by the cooperation are depicted. Accordingly, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by hardware only, software only, or a combination thereof.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an e-mail receiving operation in the terminal device 100.

  In the terminal device 100 that communicates with a mail server (not shown) and transmits and receives e-mails, the storage management unit 130 calculates the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 (S500), and the mail reception control unit 132 checks whether there is a new mail (S502). ) At a predetermined timing.

  When the mail reception control unit 132 detects by this confirmation that a new electronic mail has arrived at the mail server (S502-Y), the mail reception control unit 132 calculates the total capacity of the electronic mail to be received (S504). It compares with the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 calculated in (S506). Here, as a specific method for confirming the presence or absence of new mail to the mail server and detecting the total capacity of the e-mail, for example, in the case of POP, a message (STAT for confirming the status from the terminal device to the mail server) ) Is sent, the presence / absence of the e-mail addressed to its own terminal device, the number of e-mails in some cases, and the total capacity of all e-mails are returned, which are used.

  If the total capacity of the e-mail to be received exceeds the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 as a result of the comparison between the total capacity of the e-mail to be received and the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 (S506-Y), The remaining capacity is expanded. In this process, the storage unit 122 confirms whether or not each group can be deleted (S508), and selects and deletes the oldest e-mail from the group set to be erasable (S510). When the deletion of the e-mail is completed, the remaining capacity is confirmed again (S512), compared with the total capacity of the e-mail to be received again, and until the remaining capacity exceeds the total capacity of the e-mail to be received. The process (S508 to S512) is repeated. If the remaining capacity exceeds the total capacity of e-mails to be received due to deletion of the stored e-mail (S506-N), an e-mail is received from the mail server (S514), and the e-mail is sent according to the distribution setting shown in FIG. (S516). The sorted e-mail is stored in the corresponding group in the storage unit 122 (S518), and is displayed on the display unit 124 in accordance with an instruction from the operator.

  In the above operation, the terminal device 100 selects the oldest e-mails one by one from the erasable group to increase the remaining capacity that can be additionally recorded in the storage unit 122, and the remaining capacity after erasure is received. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, a plurality of e-mails that reach a desired remaining capacity may be selected in advance and erased collectively. .

  The operation of the communication system 10 having the above configuration will be described.

  When the control unit 134 detects a device power-on operation from the operator via the operation unit 126, the control unit 134 performs a power-on process for the device and positions the base station device 200 via the signal processing unit 108. Registration is performed, and the terminal device 100 is set in a standby state of the base station device 200.

  The erasure management unit 128 accepts an erasability operation for each group from the operator via the operation unit 126 and stores it in association with e-mail information stored in the storage unit 122.

  The mail reception control unit 132 connects to a mail server (not shown) and checks whether there is a new mail. If it is determined by this confirmation that there is a new mail, the total capacity of the electronic mail to be received is calculated and notified to the storage management unit 130.

  When the storage management unit 130 continuously calculates the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 and receives a notification of the total capacity of new mail from the mail reception control unit 132, the storage management unit 130 stores the total capacity and the previously calculated storage unit 122. Compare the remaining capacity. Further, if the total capacity of the e-mails to be received exceeds the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 as a result of the comparison, the storage management unit 130 determines that the storage capacity for reception is insufficient and stores The electronic mail stored in the unit 122 is deleted. This erasure process refers to information on whether or not e-mail can be erased set for each group by the instruction setting unit 128, and selects and erases the oldest e-mail from the group set to be erasable. When the erasure is completed, the remaining capacity is calculated again and compared with the total capacity of the previous e-mail to be received. In this comparison, when the remaining capacity is still insufficient, the same processing is repeatedly executed, and the old e-mails in the erasable group are deleted in order. When the storage capacity sufficient to store the e-mail to be received can be secured, this is notified to the mail reception control unit 132, and the reception of the e-mail is started.

  When receiving of the e-mail starts, the distribution control unit 120 distributes the e-mail according to a predetermined distribution condition, and stores it in the storage unit 122 for each corresponding group.

  The display unit 124 displays the email stored in the storage unit 122 in response to an instruction from the operator via the operation unit 126. The display uses the “group name” as a heading and also displays the quantity of unread e-mails. Note that an e-mail that has been read by the display on the display unit 124 is registered in the storage unit 122 by the instruction setting unit 128.

  According to the present embodiment, the terminal device 100 distributes received e-mails to a plurality of groups under a predetermined condition, stores the received e-mails together with erasability information for each group, and receives a new e-mail. Since the remaining capacity that can be additionally written in 122 is calculated and control is performed so as to preferentially delete the e-mails of the group set to be erasable, for example, it is not necessary to confirm whether or not erasure is possible for each e-mail. It is possible to perform an excellent e-mail receiving operation. In other words, if the importance of email sent from a given sender or the necessity of storage is low due to the sorting setting, the sender email is sorted into one group and the group can be deleted. By setting, when the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 is insufficient, the emails of the group can be deleted preferentially without judging the contents of the individual emails stored in the storage unit 122. Even in a communication terminal in which the capacity of the unit 122 is not sufficient, excellent operability can be provided.

  The present invention has been described based on the embodiments. This embodiment is an exemplification, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to combinations of the respective constituent elements and processing processes, and such modifications are also within the scope of the present invention. is there.

  In the present embodiment, the e-mail to be deleted when the remaining capacity of the storage unit 122 is insufficient has been described as the oldest e-mail of the group that is set to be erasable, but the present invention is not limited to this. Conditions may be taken into account. For example, even if an e-mail is in a group that is set to be erasable, an unread e-mail that has not yet been read by the operator is excluded from erasure, or an e-mail in a group that is set as non-erasable Even so, it may be configured that an object for which a certain period of time has elapsed from reception is to be deleted. This includes groups that can be deleted in order from the oldest, groups that can be deleted from e-mail after a certain time has passed, groups that cannot be deleted regardless of the passage of time, etc. This can be realized by setting each condition.

  According to this form, the operator can perform finer erasure settings prior to receiving an e-mail. At the time of reception, the operator can operate any e-mail to be erased more accurately from a number of e-mails. It can be erased without any problem, and extremely excellent operability can be provided.

  In the present embodiment, the e-mail is deleted by the storage management unit 130 when the mail reception control unit 132 detects the presence of a new mail. However, the present invention is not limited to this. May be executed. For example, as a periodic process, when the total capacity of e-mails stored in the storage unit 122 exceeds a predetermined value, or when the remaining storable capacity falls below a predetermined value, the presence of new mail is asynchronous. Then, the e-mail erasing process may be activated.

  According to this aspect, when receiving a new e-mail, the storage unit 122 has already secured a certain amount of remaining capacity, so that a more rapid receiving process can be performed.

It is a figure which shows the communication system which concerns on this Embodiment. It is a figure which shows the list of the distribution conditions of the email of FIG. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the memory | storage part of FIG. It is a figure which shows the display form on the display part of FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the reception operation | movement of the email of FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Communication system, 100 Terminal device, 102 Terminal antenna, 104 Radio part, 106 Modulation / demodulation part, 108 Signal processing part, 110 Voice compression / decompression part, 112 D / A conversion part, 114 Speaker, 116 Microphone, 118 A / D conversion Unit, 120 distribution processing unit, 122 storage unit, 124 display unit, 126 operation unit, 128 instruction setting unit, 130 storage management unit, 132 e-mail reception control unit, 134 control unit, 200 base station apparatus.

Claims (3)

A receiver for receiving e-mail from a communication partner;
A sorting unit that sorts the received emails into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined condition;
A storage unit for storing the sorted emails for each group;
An erasability setting unit for setting erasability of the email stored in the storage unit in units of the group;
When the receiving unit receives a new e-mail, if the total capacity of the e-mails to be received exceeds the remaining capacity that can be stored in the storage unit, the erasability setting unit determines that erasure is possible. A terminal device, comprising: a storage capacity management unit that erases an email of a set group. E-mails received from communication partners are distributed and stored in groups according to predetermined conditions,
Set whether or not to delete the email in the stored group unit,
When the total capacity of the received e-mail exceeds the remaining capacity that can be stored in the storage unit when the e-mail is newly received, the group of e-mails set as erasable by the erasability setting unit E-mail management method to delete mail. Receiving a predetermined e-mail from a base station device via a wireless line;
Sorting the received emails into a plurality of groups according to predetermined conditions, identifying the groups and storing them in a memory;
Setting whether or not to delete the e-mail for each group in the e-mail for each group stored in the memory;
When the total capacity of the received e-mail exceeds the remaining capacity that can be stored in the storage unit when the e-mail is newly received, the group of e-mails set as erasable by the erasability setting unit A program for causing a computer to execute the step of deleting mail.

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