Embodiments of the invention are generally directed toward searching for files and other data. In particular, embodiments of the invention are directed toward searching email messages and attachments to email messages on a server.
Many modern devices capable of receiving email, such as smart phones, have limited storage capacity. As a result, emails containing attachments may not be stored on the device to avoid overburdening the storage capacity. However, most systems that search emails and their attachments require that the attachments be stored on the same device performing the search. For this reason many devices of limited storage that receive emails cannot perform a search of email attachments because the attachments are not stored on the device.
An email server receives an email sent to an email account and including one or more attachments. The one or more attachments are extracted from the email into one or more temporary storage elements. Content from the temporary storage elements is indexed. The indexed content is stored along with an identifier of the email in an index corresponding to the email account. The one or more temporary storage elements is disposed of after the indexing.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements.
Various embodiments and aspects of the inventions will be described with reference to details discussed below, and the accompanying drawings will illustrate the various embodiments. The following description and drawings are illustrative of the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. Numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. However, in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order to provide a concise discussion of embodiments of the present inventions.
Mail server 105 may be any email server application running on a data processing system connected to network 103. Mail server 105 may receive an email addressed to an email account belonging to a user of client 101. Mail server 105 may send a notification to client 101 that the email has been received to prompt client 101 to connect to mail server 105 in order to retrieve the new email. The new email may have attachments, in which case the mail server 105 may store content and header information of the new email in the mail server data store 107. Mail server 105 may also receive, through network 103, from client 101, a search request. Mail server 105 may search through email content and headers in data store 107. Mail server 105 may also cause search subsystem 109 to search through the email account index corresponding to an email account on client 101 requesting the search. Searching emails and attachments is described below in conjunction with
In one embodiment, the search request is generated within the context of an email application, and the context of the email application indicates that the search request should be sent to one or more mail servers corresponding to the email accounts. In another embodiment, the search request is generated in a generic context (e.g., a normal system search). In this embodiment, the user may select an option indicating to extend the search to mail servers corresponding to user email accounts. For example, the search user interface may include a checkbox or other graphical element that indicates that the search is to include indexed attachments on mail servers.
At block 203, the method performs a first search of content and headers of email messages belonging to the user email account. In one embodiment, the mail server has a separate data store (such as data store 107 in
At block 205, the method performs a second search of indexed email attachments in an index corresponding to the user email account received in the search request. In one embodiment, the second search is performed by a search subsystem on the same data processing system on which the mail server is running (e.g., subsystem 109 of
At block 207, the search results of the first search and the second search are merged. For example, duplicate results arising from the search query matching the content of the email and the content of an attachment of the email may be collapsed into a single search result.
At block 209, the method makes the merged search results available to an email client. For example, mail server 105 may send, through network 103, a list of matching emails to client 101. Client 101 may then request the matching email and any attachments from mail server 105. In one embodiment, the list of matching emails comprises a received date, a sender address, a receiver address, and a subject field.
At block 301, the method stores content and headers of email messages in a mail server data store such as data store 107 in
At block 303, the method extracts attachments from email messages into temporary storage. This temporary storage may be temporary files stored in the local file system shared by the mail server. In other embodiments, other types of temporary storage may be used. For example, content may be indexed while residing in memory (e.g., RAM 509 in
At block 305, the method indexes attachment content using temporary storage. In one embodiment, the search subsystem performs the indexing of attachment content. In this embodiment, the search subsystem may require that items to be indexed are stored as files in the file system. Indexing of the content of the extracted attachments may be performed as is known in the art by a search subsystem. The search subsystem stores the indexed attachment content into an index that is specific to the email account to which the email including the attachment was addressed. In another embodiment, a single index is used. If separate, per-account indexes are used, the method also stores an identifier with the indexed content. The identifier specifies the email to which the attachment was attached. The identifier may be provided by the mail server and uniquely identifies the email in the context of emails received by the mail server. In another embodiment, the identifier uniquely identifies the email within the context of emails addressed to a particular email account.
An email may have multiple attachments. Some embodiments may include a second identifier in addition to the email account identifier which identifies which attachment(s) matched the search request. Results may then indicate both the email and which attachment(s) in the email matched the search request. In other embodiments, a search result for a matching attachment may include some contextual data, such as one or more words on either side of the matching term to provide the user with context when reviewing the search results on the client. In one embodiment, the attachments may include text content (e.g., a word processor document), image content (e.g., a JPEG file), video content (e.g., a Quicktime file), and executable content (e.g., an application program). In some embodiments, the attachment may be opened or executed from the search results. This may cause the attachment to be automatically downloaded from the server.
At block 309, the method disposes of the temporary storage. In one embodiment, disposing of the temporary storage may include deleting temporary files from a file system. In some embodiments, disk storage on the mail server is a limiting factor, and as a result keeping the attachments in their extracted form is unacceptable. Also, leaving extracted attachments in the file system may represent a security risk.
As shown in
The mass storage 511 is typically a magnetic hard drive or a magnetic optical drive or an optical drive or a DVD RAM or a flash memory or other types of memory systems which maintain data (e.g., large amounts of data) even after power is removed from the system. Typically, the mass storage 511 will also be a random access memory although this is not required. While
A display controller and display device 607 provide a visual user interface for the user; this digital interface may include a graphical user interface which is similar to that shown on a Macintosh computer when running OS X operating system software. The system 600 also includes one or more wireless transceivers 603. A wireless transceiver may be a WiFi transceiver, an infrared transceiver, a Bluetooth transceiver, and/or a wireless cellular telephony transceiver. It will be appreciated that additional components, not shown, may also be part of the system 600 in certain embodiments, and in certain embodiments fewer components than shown in
The data processing system 600 also includes one or more input devices 613 which are provided to allow a user to provide input to the system. These input devices may be a keypad or a keyboard or a touch panel or a multi touch panel. The data processing system 600 also includes an optional input/output device 615 which may be a connector for a dock. It will be appreciated that one or more buses, not shown, may be used to interconnect the various components as is well known in the art. The data processing system shown in
In the foregoing specification, server-side searching of email attachments has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof. It will be evident that various modifications may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.
This application claims priority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/445,497, filed on Feb. 22, 2011.
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