An image processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a receiving section which receives image data over the Internet and temporarily storing it, a printing section which prints the temporarily stored image data, a category defining section which defines categories of volume of image data by means of threshold values, an output destination specifying section which specifies the destination of output of the temporarily stored image data from a plurality of output sections, including the printing section, by referring to the categories defined by the category defining section, a judging section which determines the category of the image data as defined by the category defining section, and a processing section which processes the image data in accordance with the output section for the category as determined by the judging section.