JPH1125012A - Electronic mail system with automatic discarding function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To validly utilize the storage resource of a file server by automatically discarding a mail and extending a preserving period by the file server according to an instruction from a user. SOLUTION: A mail inquiring function 3 receives a collated result from a mail collating function 5, recognizes that a certain mail reaches a discard period, and inquires whether or not the mail should be discarded or the preservation of the mail in a storage device 6 should be continued by extending the period to a user. When the user designates the discard of the mail, the instruction of the discard of the mail is communicated through the mail inquiring function 3 to a mail discarding/preserving function 4, and the mail in the storage device 6 is discarded by the mail discarding/preserving function 4. Also, when the user designates the period extension of the mail to the inquired mail, it is communicated to the mail discarding/preserving function 4 in the same way, and the discard period of the mail in the storage device 6 is extended and set.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic mail discarding system in an electronic mail system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional method for automatically deleting a mail in an electronic mail system is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-95369. This technology will be described with reference to FIG. 2. A mail automatic deletion designation function 30 which receives a user's automatic deletion request of a mail from a terminal and stores whether or not the automatic deletion function is being registered, and the user And a mail reference function 40 for referring to the mail in the mailbox of the terminal in response to a request from the terminal and storing the reference. Further, the mail of the user who has registered the automatic deletion function is monitored at regular time intervals, and when the mail which has expired and has been referred to by the user is identified, the mail automatic deletion function 50 for automatically deleting the mail is automatically deleted. And

With such a configuration, if a user registers an automatic mail deletion function in the electronic mail system, the mail that has passed since the user has been referred to is deleted. Resources can be used effectively.

[0004]

In the above-described conventional e-mail automatic deletion method, an e-mail that has been referred to once is automatically deleted without confirmation after a long time. There was a problem that can not be kept. In addition, since the use of the external storage device is not assumed, there is a problem in that the resource of the storage device is used by a less important mail.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to automatically save and discard electronic mail and to make effective use of storage resources of a file server for storing electronic mail.

In order to achieve this object, an electronic mail service with an automatic discarding function according to the present invention has the following configuration. (1) In the terminal, the user sets the expiration date of the mail. (2) A file server having the following configuration.

(21) A storage device for storing an e-mail and its expiration date for each user (22) A mail destruction / storage function for receiving an e-mail and a setting of its expiration date from a user and storing it in a storage device (23) ) A mail collation function of collating the mail stored in the storage device with the expiration date of the e-mail at a fixed time interval and sending out the collation result. A mail inquiry function for inquiring the user of the terminal whether to continue saving the mail in the storage device or discarding the mail. (3) When the user instructs the mail to be discarded in response to an inquiry from the mail inquiry function, The discard / save function discards the mail in the storage device, and in response to an inquiry from the mail inquiry function, instructs the user to continue saving the mail for an extended period of time. Then, the mail discard / save function extends the discard time limit of the mail in the storage device and sets it.

[0008] A second embodiment of the present invention is characterized by further comprising the following configuration.

(1) The electronic mail system further includes an external storage device outside the file server. (2) In the terminal, the user further sets the importance of the mail. (3) The storage device further stores the importance of the e-mail for each user. (4) In response to an inquiry from the e-mail inquiry function, if the user instructs to continue saving the e-mail for an extended period and set the importance to be low, the e-mail discard / save function causes the e-mail discard / save function to store the e-mail in the storage device. The expiration date is set to be extended, and the mail data is transferred to an external storage device for storage.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The configuration of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electronic mail system with an automatic discarding function according to the present invention.
And the file server 2. The file server 2 includes a mail inquiry function 3, a mail discard / save function 4, a mail collation function 5, and a storage device 6, and is connected to an external storage device 7.

Next, the operation of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. First, at the terminal 1, the user designates, for each received mail, the expiration date for deleting the mail from the storage device and the importance of the mail. The e-mail discard / save function 4 saves the user's e-mail in the storage device 6 together with the e-mail expiration date and importance specified by the user.

Aside from the above-described processing, the mail collating function 5 is activated at regular time intervals, and collates the expiration date and importance of the mail stored in the storage device 6. As a result of the collation, if the e-mail has not yet reached the expiration date, the collation processing of the e-mail is terminated, and the state in which the e-mail is stored in the storage device is maintained. As a result of the collation, when the e-mail has reached the expiration date, the e-mail collation result is transferred to the e-mail inquiry function 3. Email inquiry function 3
Receives the collation result from the e-mail collation function 5 and, when recognizing that a certain mail has reached the expiration date, uses whether to discard the e-mail or extend the expiration date and continue saving in the storage device. Send an email to contact the person.

When the user designates that the corresponding mail is to be discarded in response to the inquiry mail, an instruction to discard the mail is notified to the mail discard / save function 4 via the mail inquiry function 3. You. The corresponding mail in the storage device 6 is discarded by the mail discard / save function 4 receiving this instruction.

[0015] When the user designates the extension of the term of the corresponding mail in response to the inquiry mail, the user is similarly notified to the mail discard / save function 4 via the mail inquiry function 3. The email discard / save function that received the notification
The expiration date of the corresponding mail in the storage device 6 is extended and set.

Further, when the user designates the extension of the term of the applicable mail and designates the importance of the relevant mail to be low in the inquiry mail, the mail inquiry function 3
E-mail discard / save function 4 that receives the instruction via
Thus, after the extension of the expiration date of the corresponding mail in the storage device 6 is set, the mail is transferred from the storage device 6 to the external storage device 7 and stored.

[0017]

According to the above configuration, the electronic mail system of the present invention uses the storage resources of the file server by automatically discarding the mail and extending the storage period in accordance with the instruction from the user. Can be used effectively.

In the electronic mail system of the present invention, the user designates the importance of the mail, and determines that the mail of low importance is not so frequently referred to and saves the mail in the external storage device, thereby saving the file. The storage resources of the server can be used effectively.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electronic mail system with an automatic discarding function according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional electronic mail system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1: Terminal 2: File server 3: E-mail inquiry function 4: E-mail discard / save function 5: E-mail collation function 6: Storage device 7: External storage device 10: Terminal 20: Processing device 30: E-mail automatic deletion designation function 40: E-mail Reference function 50: Automatic mail deletion function 60: Storage device 70: Mail box

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An electronic mail system comprising a plurality of terminals connected by a network and a file server, wherein the terminal sets a mail expiration date by a user, and the file server sets an electronic mail for each user. A storage device for storing an e-mail and its expiration date, and receiving the e-mail and its expiration date setting from a user,
A mail discarding / storing function for storing in the storage device, a mail matching function for comparing a mail stored in the storage device with a time limit for discarding the message at a fixed time interval, and transmitting a matching result, and receiving the matching result. A mail inquiring function for inquiring the user of the terminal whether to continue saving the mail in the storage device or discarding the mail when the mail whose expiration date has expired is identified, In response to an inquiry from the user, the user instructs to discard the mail, the mail discard / save function discards the mail in the storage device, and in response to an inquiry from the mail inquiry function, the user saves the mail. When an instruction is given to extend the period of time, the mail discard / save function extends and sets the expiration date of the mail in the storage device. An e-mail system with an automatic disposal function. 2. The electronic mail system further comprises an external storage device outside the file server, wherein the terminal further sets the importance of the mail by the user, and the storage device stores the electronic mail for each user. If the user instructs to continue saving the mail for an extended period of time in response to an inquiry from the mail inquiry function and set the importance to be low, the mail discard / save function 2. The e-mail system with an automatic discarding function according to claim 1, wherein the e-mail system further extends and sets the expiration date of the mail in the storage device, and transfers and stores the data of the mail to the external storage device.