Patent ID: 8180833

Claim:
A system for managing messages in a message transfer system, the system comprising at least one processor and at least one memory device communicatively coupled to said at least one processor, the memory device having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for instructing the processor to cause the following steps: receiving and storing a single e-mail message addressed to a plurality of recipients, the single e-mail message comprising a content and an envelope, the content including a body and the envelope including a plurality of recipient addresses; in response to determining that a number of the plurality of recipient addresses exceeds a specified threshold, determining a quantity of email messages to be derived from the single e-mail message, the quantity of e-email messages being a function of the number of the plurality of recipient addresses, a size of the e-mail message content, and available resources of the system; generating the quantity of e-mail messages derived from the single e-mail message, the generated e-mail messages being addressed to respective subsets of the plurality of recipient addresses; and processing the generated quantity of e-mail messages through a plurality of extensibility points configured to enable a plurality of modules external to the system to access and modify the generated quantity of e-mail messages.