Patent ID: 7039678

Claim:
An e-mail proxy method for enabling an email proxy to support selective downloading of a multi-part e-mail message to an e-mail client operated by a user from an e-mail server, the multi-part e-mail message including at least one attachment, the attachment being encoded, the email proxy communicating between the email server and the email client, the e-mail proxy method comprising at the email proxy: retrieving information of the at least one attachment for the multi-part e-mail message from the e-mail server; downloading the at least one attachment of the multi-part email message from the email server; preparing a formatted message for sending to the e-mail client, the formatted message containing a link to the at least one downloaded attachment, such that the attachment is not sent to the e-mail client; sending the formatted message to the e-mail client; decoding the at least one attachment to bring about a reduction in the size of the attachment; and upon receiving an indication from the email client that the attachment is required sending the decoded requested attachment to the e-mail client.