Patent ID: 8060529

Claim:
A method, comprising: at a first instant messaging (IM) client device: detecting a selection of a contact from a displayed instant messaging contact list; detecting a selection of at least one file stored within a local memory of the first IM client device to share with the selected contact; determining a quantity of the selected at least one file; automatically creating, for each of the determined quantity of the selected at least one file stored within the local memory of the first IM client device, a row in a shared file access control list table that controls access to the local memory of the first IM client device, where the shared file access control list table is stored within the local memory of the first IM client device; automatically extracting information corresponding to fields of each created row in the shared file access control list table from one of an entry in the instant messaging contact list associated with the selected contact, and, for each created row, a share path to a storage location within the local memory of the shared at least one file associated with each row; and automatically filling at least one field of each created row in the shared file access control list table with the extracted information corresponding to the at least one field.