Patent ID: 7251680

Claim:
A method for backing up a plurality of e-mail messages, wherein at least two of said plurality of e-mail messages include the same attachments, said method comprising: backing up said plurality of e-mail messages to a storage medium along with only one instance of any duplicate attachments, wherein said backing up includes, for each of said plurality of e-mail messages: if a current one of the plurality of e-mail messages includes an attachment: extracting metadata from the current e-mail message; buffering the extracted metadata in a corresponding entry in a data structure; and storing the current e-mail message and the extracted metadata on the storage medium without the attachment; otherwise: storing the current e-mail message to the storage medium; and wherein a given entry in said data structure corresponds to a given attachment, and wherein said given entry includes metadata corresponding to one or more of said plurality of e-mail messages that include said given attachment.