Patent ID: 8250153

Claim:
An electronic mail (email) system comprising: at least one email server having mailboxes for storing email messages, the mailboxes comprising subscribed mailboxes and unsubscribed mailboxes, the subscribed mailboxes generating new email message notifications; a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices; and at least one email aggregation server configured to: repetitively poll the mailboxes for email messages, and forward the email messages to respective ones of the mobile wireless communications devices; determine time overlapped polling of the mailboxes and time stagger a next polling thereof; for unsubscribed mailboxes, perform a first type polling comprising an abbreviated polling for new emails unless a threshold time has elapsed since a last second type polling comprising a reconciliation polling; and for subscribed mailboxes, upon receipt of a new email message notification from a respective subscribed mailbox, perform at least one of the first type polling and second type polling on the respective subscribed mailbox.