US Patent 11329940 Coordinated unread count for email applications

The disclosure concerns tracking a total count of unread messages where an email service manages email messages and a subset of the email messages are also stored locally on a client device. The client device may maintain a local unread count of unread messages stored on the client device, and the email service may maintain a remote unread count of unread messages stored on the email service but not on the client device. The email service may provide the remote unread count to the client device, and the client device may determine the total unread count by adding the local unread count to the remote unread count. The client device may also provide an identifier to the email service, and the email service may use the identifier to determine which of the email messages stored on the email service are not stored on the client device.