Patent ID: 8918472

Claim:
A method for managing email by an email system, the method comprising the following steps: receiving, from a recipient user having an email account on the email system, a set of predefined instructions regarding second chance processing of a received email, wherein the received set of predefined instructions comprise at least a first condition and a first response associated with the first condition, wherein the first condition is at least one of the following conditions: (i) the recipient user's email address is in a predetermined one of at least two possible addressee fields of the email communication; (ii) the recipient user is a sole receiver of the email communication; and (iii) the received email contains a predetermined keyword, and further wherein the first response is second chance processing of the received email; receiving, at an email server of the email system, a received email; and processing the received email using the second chance processing only if the first received email meets the first condition; wherein the processing step includes the following sub-steps: querying a sender of the first received email regarding retraction of the first received email; receiving a query response from the sender in response to the query, wherein the response comprises information from the sender regarding whether to retract the received email; and retraction-related processing comprising one of the following two types of processing: (i) retracting the first received email if the information from the sender indicates that the sender has chosen retraction; or (ii) not retracting the first received email if the information from the sender indicates that the sender has not chosen retraction.