An application resource manager is provided to organize, prioritize, and optimize data transmissions from several connected applications. Through inter-process communication, the several connected applications may pass all transmission requests to the centralized manager, which will perform all transmissions according to priority. When the transmission includes a download (e.g., file, email, etc.), the manager will pass the complete file (or a pointer to the same) to the originally requesting application. The original application may perform post-processing and then use the downloaded data, including making the data available to the user. If however, the requesting application is offline, the manager may also perform, e.g., the essential post-processing, via a plug-in given to the manager by the application when the application initially connected to the manager. A full sized user interface and a smaller user interface may be provided for un-intrusive execution.