Patent ID: 7739343

Claim:
A system for configuring access to an electronic mailbox comprising: a user system having an email client; a database that is arranged to store configuration conventions related to configuration parameters used for accessing an electronic mailbox, wherein the configuration conventions are sets of email expressions that symbolically represent a set of configuration parameters used by email providers for accessing the mailbox of a user; and a mailbox interface module that is in communication with the database and user system and which is operative as an agent between the user system and the electronic mailbox of the user, wherein the mailbox interface module is configured to: receive limited configuration information from the user, wherein the limited configuration information does not provide all of necessary configuration parameters required for accessing the electronic mailbox; infer a mailbox domain from the limited configuration information and retrieve configuration conventions for the mailbox domain from the database that represent potentially valid configuration parameters for the mailbox domain that will allow access to the electronic mailbox; generate sets of potentially valid configuration parameters based on the limited configuration information and the retrieved configuration conventions to attempt to access the electronic mailbox with the sets of potentially valid configuration parameters; and wherein the mailbox interface module generates a subset of the sets of the potentially valid configuration parameters by using heuristics of likelihood that the set of configuration parameters is valid for accessing the electronic mailbox for a mail domain when initial attempts to access were unsuccessful.