Patent ID: 6868436

Claim:
A method in a computer system for filtering unauthorized electronic mail messages that are sent by senders to a user, each sender having an identification, each electronic mail message including the identification of the sender, the method comprising: providing a list of the identifications of the senders who are authorized to send an electronic mail message to the user; for each of a plurality of electronic mail messages, determining whether the sender of the electronic mail message is authorized by determining whether the identification of sender in the electronic mail message is in the provided list of the identifications of the senders who are authorized; when the sender of the electronic mail message is determined to be authorized, storing the electronic mail message in a first folder designated for electronic mail messages received from authorized senders; when the sender of the electronic mail message is determined to be not authorized, storing the electronic mail message in a second folder designated for electronic mail messages received from unauthorized senders, the second folder being optionally viewable by the user; when the user sends an electronic mail message to a recipient, the identification of the recipient is automatically added to the provided list of the identifications of senders who are authorized to send electronic mail message to the user, whereby the electronic mail messages are automatically stored in the appropriate folder based on whether the sender is authorized so that the user can view the first folder containing the electronic messages sent by authorized senders separately from the second folder containing the electronic mail messages sent by unauthorized senders.