Abstract: A filing assistant for coupling to an e-mail application; the email application comprising a message database for storing and retrieving messages and a graphical user interface (GUI) for displaying the messages and for allowing the user to otherwise interact with the application, the filing assistant comprising a display and indexer for generating an optimized folder index.

Abstract: A method of improved handling of an email by a recipient email program comprising the steps of: (a) displaying a dialog to a sender of the email in response to the sender attempting to send the email to the recipient, wherein the dialog allows the sender to select tags for tagging the email, said tags being predetermined by the recipient; (b) sending the email together with tags selected by the sender from list of tags offered by the recipient, and (c) using the selected tags to prioritize the incoming email in accordance with recipient categories.