parameters include digital certificates passwords and compression method options operation of the mail attachment compressor program is initiated by installing the mail attachment compressor module software onto the users system and initiating microsoft outlook if the mail attachment compression feature is enabled through the toggle button the attachments will automatically be compressed when the message is sent using the send button if the mail attachment compression feature is not enabled then the attachments will be sent unaltered the components of the mail attachment compressor module provide the functionality to be implemented within microsoft outlook and provide integration between this module and the underlying compression extraction engine when compressing an attachment the files to be compressed will be passed off to the compression extraction engine of the underlying software program after compression the compressed file will be reattached to the original message the original copies of the attachments that are now compressed will be removed from the message and any temporary files created during compression will be deleted the mail attachments module uses the compression extraction engine to hook directly into microsoft outlook to allow users to compress email attachments into zip files this module provides an automation hook so that email attachments appended to outlook mail messages can be automatically compressed when the message is sent the scan and add dialog of the archive manager is invoked via the scan and add toolbar button or the explorer file right click menu once the user is finished specifying files to add to the archive manager list the user clicks.