Automatically retrieving messages by a wireless telephone based on user preferences. A method of the invention receives a notification, on a wireless device, indicating that a computing device has a message for a user. One or more rules associated with the user are evaluated based on the received notification. The method also automatically requests the message from the computing device as a function of the evaluated rules and received from the computing device. The method further stores the received message in a memory area of the wireless telephone for rendering to the user. Alternatively, one or more rules associated with the user are dynamically generated by monitoring the user interaction with the wireless telephone.