Abstract: A video mail delivery system for generating and transmitting video mail between a sender computer and a receiver computer over a communications network, such as the Internet. A video mail file containing audio and video content is recorded in a standard audio video interleave format and is then reformatted and compressed into an advanced streaming format. A video mail message window on the sender computer display enables the addition of an electronic text message to the video mail. A hyperlink to the compressed video mail file is inserted automatically into the video mail message window. When the video mail message is sent, the compressed video mail file is transmitted to a video store and forward server that stores the video mail file until it is accessed by the destination receiver computer.