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Sent emails in Outlook show as draft and are empty. How to resolve?

Sulove Khanal 25 Reputation points
2025-11-13T19:46:28.41+00:00

Probably sometime last month, I began noticing that many of my sent emails in my Outlook app on my Mac (I am using New Outlook) show as draft and are empty. It's common to go back and look at an email you may have sent yesterday, or last week, but when doing so many of these previously sent emails (that were sent out fine) show as blank/empty and in "draft" status. This looks like a big bug, but I can't find anywhere online on how to fix it. It's pretty frustrating. I am having to use two separate mail clients (Outlook and another client) to work around this issue.

Appreciate any help that can be provided.

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Outlook | MacOS | New Outlook for Mac | For business
Answer accepted by question author
  1. Matthew-P 11,985 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-11-14T03:10:42.4133333+00:00

    Please note that our forum is a public platform, and we will modify your question to hide your personal information in the description. Kindly ensure that you hide any personal or organizational information the next time you post an error or other details to protect personal data.

    Hi Sulove Khanal,

    Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum! 

    Have a good day and I hope you're doing well!  

    Thank you for reaching out about the frustrating experience you're having with New Outlook for Mac having sent emails suddenly appear as "Drafts" with empty content must be incredibly annoying and disruptive to your work. I completely understand and empathize with your disappointment. Before performing any other actions, please check the steps below: 

    1. Reset the account to clear the cache 

    • Please follow the detailed instructions at: Clear the cache in Outlook for Mac 
    • After completing this, give Outlook a little time to reload the data from the server, then check the Sent Items folder to see if the issue has improved. 

    2. Remove and re-add the account: to force the data to sync again.

    To better pinpoint the cause, I have a few quick questions: 

    1. Have you tried switching to the Legacy (Classic) version of Outlook? If so, does the same issue occur there as in New Outlook? 
    2. Are you using our email service, such as Microsoft 365/Exchange? If yes, please log in to Outlook on the web (https://outlook.office.com) to check: Do the emails in Sent Items display with full content, and are they marked as Drafts? 

    If you're using an IMAP/POP account from another provider, try logging into the corresponding webmail portal to confirm that the sent email content is still displaying normally (this will help rule out any data loss on the server). 

    Note: For Microsoft 365/Exchange or IMAP accounts, your original data is safely stored on the server and will sync back. If you're using POP, I recommend checking webmail first to ensure emails are properly stored. 

    I hope these suggestions help at least partially. If I've misunderstood the issue, if the instructions aren't clear, or if you have any additional concerns or details (such as your macOS version, Outlook version, account type...), please feel free to let me know. I'm here to provide further assistance.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".    

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

    1 person found this answer helpful.

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  1. Q&A Assist
    2025-11-13T19:46:53.4433333+00:00
    AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn more

    The issue you're experiencing with sent emails showing as drafts and being empty could be related to a problem with the folder hierarchy in your Outlook application. Specifically, if the Sent Items folder is not functioning correctly, it may cause emails to appear incorrectly.

    Here are a few steps you can take to try to resolve the issue:

    1. Check Folder Hierarchy: Ensure that the Sent Items folder is correctly set up and not mistakenly converted to another folder type, like Archive.
    2. Reset Folders: You can try running the command Outlook.exe /resetfolders to reset the folder structure. This may help in restoring the correct functionality of your folders.
    3. Update Outlook: Make sure that your Outlook app is updated to the latest version, as updates often include bug fixes that could resolve your issue.
    4. Rebuild Profile: If the problem persists, consider creating a new Outlook profile to see if that resolves the issue with sent emails.

    If these steps do not resolve your issue, you may want to consult Microsoft's support documentation or forums for further assistance.

    References:

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