Database design for email messaging system.

Question

I want to make an email messaging system like gmail have. I would like to have following option: Starred, Trash, Spam, Draft, Read, Unread. Right now I have the below following structure in my database :

CREATE TABLE [MyInbox](
    [InboxID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [FromUserID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [ToUserID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [Created] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [Subject] [nvarchar](255) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NOT NULL,
    [Body] [nvarchar](max) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NOT NULL,
    [IsRead] [bit] NOT NULL,
    [IsReceived] [bit] NOT NULL,
    [IsSent] [bit] NOT NULL,
    [IsStar] [bit] NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_MyInbox_IsStarred]  DEFAULT ((0)),
    [IsTrash] [bit] NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_MyInbox_IsTrashed]  DEFAULT ((0)),
    [IsDraft] [bit] NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_MyInbox_Isdrafted]  DEFAULT ((0))
) ON [PRIMARY]

But I am facing some issues with the above structure. Right now if a user A sends a msessage to user B I am storing a row in this table But if user B deletes the that message it gets deleted frm user's A sent message too. This is wrong, I want exactly as normal email messaging system does. If A deletes message from his sent item then B should not get deleted from his inbox. I am thinking on other problem here which will come suppose a user A sent a mail to 500 users at once so as per my design I will have 500 rows with duplicate bodies i.e not a memory efficent way to store it. Could you guys please help me in makeing the design for a messaging system ?

Answer 1

I think you need to decompose your schema some more. Store emails seperately, and map inboxes to the messages they contain.

Answer 2

If you're doing document-orientated work, I suggest taking a look at CouchDB. It is schema-less, meaning issues like this disappear.

Let's take a look at the example: A sends a message to B, and it's deleted by B.

You would have a single instance of the document, with recipients listed as an attribute of the email. As users delete messages, you either remove them from the recipients list or add them to a list of deleted_by or whatever you choose.

It's a much different approach to data than what you're used to, but may be highly beneficial to take some time to consider.

Answer 3

A message can only be in one folder at a time, so you want a folders table (containing folders 'Trash', 'Inbox', 'Archive', etc.) and a foreign key from messages to folders. For labels, you have a many-to-many relation, so you need a labels table and also a link table (messages_labels). For starring, a simple bit column should do, same for 'unread'.

Answer 4

If I were you I would set two flags one for sender and other one for receiver if both flags are true then message should be deleted from database otherwise keep that in database but hide it from who deleted it.

Do same thing for trash. You may want to run cron or check manually if both sender and receiver delete the message then remove it from database.

Answer 5

You could create a table for MessageContacts which joins each message to the people who have it in their mailboxes. When a user deletes a message then a row gets deleted from MessageContacts but the original message is preserved.

You could do that... but I suggest you don't. Unless it's an academic exercise set by your tutor then it is surely a complete waste of time to develop your own messaging system. If it is homework then you ought to say so. If not, then go do something more useful instead.

Answer 6

You need to split your table for it. You could have following schema and structure

CREATE TABLE [Users]
    (
      [UserID] INT ,
      [UserName] NVARCHAR(50) ,
      [FirstName] NVARCHAR(50) ,
      [LastName] NVARCHAR(50)
    )

CREATE TABLE [Messages]
    (
      [MessageID] INT ,
      [Subject] NVARCHAR(MAX) ,
      [Body] NVARCHAR(MAX) ,
      [Date] DATETIME,
      [AuthorID] INT,
    )

CREATE TABLE [MessagePlaceHolders]
    (
      [PlaceHolderID] INT ,
      [PlaceHolder] NVARCHAR(255)--For example: InBox, SentItems, Draft, Trash, Spam 
    )

CREATE TABLE [Users_Messages_Mapped]
    (
      [MessageID] INT ,
      [UserID] INT ,
      [PlaceHolderID] INT,
      [IsRead] BIT ,
      [IsStarred] BIT 

    )

Database Diagram:

In users table you can have users."Messages" denotes the table for messages. "MessagePlaceHolders" denotes the table for placeholders for messages. Placeholders can be inbox, sent item, draft, spam or trash. "Users_Messages_Mapped" denotes the mapping table for users and messages. The "UserID" and "PlaceHolderID" are the foreign keys."IsRead" and "IsStarred" signifies what their name stands for. If there is no record found for a particular messageid in "Users_Messages_Mapped" table that record will be deleted from Messages table since we no longer need it.