Patent ID: 6898627

Claim:
A communication device for receiving an e-mail stored in an e-mail server, said device comprising: communication means for transmitting an e-mail transmission request to the e-mail server and receiving the e-mail transmitted from the e-mail server in response to the transmission request; memory means for storing the e-mail received from the e-mail server; acquisition means for acquiring from the e-mail server, before said communication means receives the e-mail from the e-mail server, size information of the e-mail located on the e-mail server; determination means for determining, based on the size information of the requested e-mail acquired by said acquisition means and an available storage capacity of said memory means, whether the storage capacity of said memory means in the communication device is sufficient to store all data included in the e-mail, wherein, if it is determined that the available storage capacity of said memory means is sufficient to store all the data included in the e-mail, the e-mail server transmits the e-mail entirely to the communication device, otherwise the e-mail server transmits only header data of the e-mail to the communication device; warning means for, if said determination means determines that the available storage capacity of said memory means of said communication device is not sufficient to store all the data included in the e-mail, visually outputting warning information to the communication device indicating that the e-mail stored in the e-mail server cannot be entirely received; and recording means, wherein said warning means generates a report indicating the warning information and records it using said recording means, wherein said communication device converts a received e-mail into image data and records that e-mail using said recording means.