Patent ID: 7499975

Claim:
A method for sending an e-mail with attachment from a sender's server to intended recipients, the method comprising: determining, by the sender's server, the size of an original e-mail; creating, by the sender's server, a fake e-mail containing a uniquekey ID along with size information relating to the size of the original e-mail; storing, by the sender's server, a copy of the original e-mail associated with the uniquekey ID at the sender's server; transmitting, by the sender's server, the fake e-mail to recipients' servers; determining, by the recipients' servers, whether an intended recipient has the capacity to receive the original e-mail by using said size information contained in the fake e-mail and recipient's quota; replying, by the recipients' servers, to the sender's server with a message including the uniquekey ID indicating which of intended recipients that have the capacity to receive the original e-mail; sending, by the sender's server, said copy of the original e-mail only to the recipients' servers that serve those intended recipients that have the capacity to receive the original e-mail; and delivering, by the recipients' servers, said copy of the original e-mail to those intended recipients that have the capacity to receive the original e-mail and a notification to those intended recipients that will not receive the original e-mail due to capacity restrictions.