Patent ID: 7797388

Claim:
A method of managing a shared electronic mail account co-owned by at least two owners, the method comprising: intercepting electronic mail account configuration settings received from the at least two owners, including intercepting auto-reply message configuration settings by at least one of the at least two owners, extracting from the auto-reply message settings by at least one of the at least two owners information related to an unavailability of the owner to attend messages received at the shared electronic mail account, and filtering receipt confirmation message subsequent to a receipt of a first confirmation receipt issued in respect of a certain incoming message, wherein the intercepted electronic mail account configuration settings are generated local to the at least two owners; sending the intercepted mail account configuration settings to be saved in an archive having current electronic mail account configuration settings; comparing the intercepted mail account configuration settings with the current electronic mail account configuration settings; combining the intercepted electronic mail account configuration settings with the current electronic mail account configuration settings based on a shared electronic mail account profile so as to generate shared e-mail account configuration settings, including activating an auto-reply message functionality for the shared electronic mail account in case a selected number of owners have set respective auto-reply messages; using the extracted information for estimating an expected time needed to reply to a message received at the shared electronic mail account, and replying to the received message sending a reply message containing an indication of the expected time; and applying the shared e-mail account configuration settings so as to affect the operation of the shared electronic mail account, wherein the shared e-mail account configuration settings are based solely on the shared electronic mail account profile, inclusive of the local changes consistent with the account profile, and exclusive of local changes inconsistent with the mail account profile.