What do I need to do to ensure that My emails are sending instead of remaining in draft folder?

Janice Ogurcak 40 Reputation points
2025-12-04T16:46:37.4733333+00:00

I write emails and send them. They are in the sent folder. However, later they are in my draft folder and have not sent. They are not received by anyone on the email.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Other
Answer accepted by question author
Edward Schlobohm01 10,210 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2025-12-04T17:25:16.5233333+00:00

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft community and explaining what’s going on. From what you’ve described, it seems your emails aren’t actually leaving the outbox even though they first appear in Sent Items, and then later move back to Drafts. This usually happens when there’s a problem with your connection or your account isn’t syncing properly with the mail server.

To fix this, start by making sure you have a stable internet connection when sending emails. Next, check your account settings in Outlook. You can do this by going to File > Account Settings > Account Settings, selecting your account, and clicking Repair. Also, confirm that your SMTP server settings are correct.

If the issue persists, clear any stuck messages from your Outbox and restart Outlook. Make sure your credentials are up to date, if you’re prompted for a password, re-enter it, and for Microsoft accounts, try signing out and back in. Sometimes add-ins can interfere, so you might want to disable any non-essential ones under File > Options > Add-ins and restart Outlook.

If none of these steps work, creating a new profile can help. Go to Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles, add a new profile, and reconfigure your account.

Let me know if this helps or if you need more clarification, I’m happy to help!

Warm regards,

Edward

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AI answer

2025-12-04T16:46:50.17+00:00

To ensure that your emails are sent instead of remaining in the Draft folder, you should check the following:

  1. DNS Settings: If you are using Exchange Server 2016 or Exchange Server 2013, make sure that the Register this connection's addresses in DNS checkbox is selected on the DNS tab of the Advanced TCP/IP Settings dialog box. If this option is not selected, it can cause emails to get stuck in the Drafts folder and not send properly. You may see an error message in the transport queue indicating a DNS query failure.
  2. Sending Emails: When you send an email, ensure that you are using the correct methods to send the email messages. You can either send a new email message or send an existing message from the Drafts folder. For existing messages, use the appropriate operation like SendItem to send the email and save it in the Sent Items folder.
  3. Check Email Client: Ensure that your email client is functioning properly and that there are no connectivity issues that might prevent emails from being sent.

By addressing these points, you should be able to resolve the issue of emails remaining in the Draft folder instead of being sent.

References:

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