A system is described in which, under certain conditions, a wireless data processing apparatus and/or the service to which the apparatus communicates, will enter a batch processing mode. Under the batch processing mode, the apparatus and/or service will combine a series of message transactions (e.g., message viewings, message deletions, . . . etc) before synchronizing with the service and/or apparatus, respectively. Various types of batch processing parameters may be set to determine whether the system should enter batch processing mode and/or how batch processing should be performed once batch processing mode has been entered.