Lost draft email

Question

Lost draft email

Dom 51

Oct 17, 2020, 3:30 PM

Hello, I had a list of books I have read over several years as a draft email. I looked at the email today and see it is completely blank. I have done nothing. The draft email (with the same subject) remains in my draft folder.
Is there any way to recover this? I did nothing to delete the content. It just disappeared.
This is content of some sentimental value and I'd love to recover it.

PetraB 21 Reputation points

Jun 30, 2021, 9:00 PM

Hey there. I just had this happen today! Was your issue ever resolved? My draft, like yours, has the subject matter but says no content. Arghhh
Gevaert, S. (Stefan) 11 Reputation points

Jul 9, 2021, 8:38 AM

I've had the exact same issue yesterday twice! I'm on a Macbook, it happened on my Desktop Mail but the content has also disappeared on web mail, has not been archived or deleted accidentally (I checked on Web Mail).

Extremely frustrating when composing important emails. The emails themselves are still there with the right date and subject and people CCd, but all content is gone.
Maria Olmedo Palomeque 26 Reputation points

Aug 9, 2021, 12:07 PM

This happens to me as well....I save drafts to send later in order to don't bother my team with emails after work hours. EVERYTIME I go into the mobile application and load my draft, THE DRAFT IS EMPTY. This causes unnecessary waste of time and it's extremely annoying.
Zarin Tasnim Isra 6 Reputation points

Aug 11, 2021, 5:40 AM

Almost a year later but this happened to me today!! I had been writing stuff in this draft for years and today everything except the subject line is gone! I know for a fact I haven't done anything. This is extremely frustrating.
Andy Twidle 6 Reputation points

Aug 13, 2021, 5:03 AM

Just suffered this today. Saved a draft, closed the window and when I re-opened it the content (including signature) was gone. Most frustrating.
John Walker 21 Reputation points

Sep 9, 2021, 4:26 PM

I have exactly the same issue as everyone above. Only using Outlook web app via browser (Edge and Safari; same results) as our corporate security policy doesn’t allow using the off-web app.

Composing an email in the browser page seems to have maybe a 5-minute time limit; if I exceed this the window closes and my content disappears. Primal scream!

The only thing saved to Drafts folder is the subject line. If I could at least extend the composition time it would help. Workaround for now is to write in notepad or notes.
Bill Swersey 1 Reputation point

Sep 29, 2021, 2:43 AM

Same here. Worked on a draft for a while but decided to wait until the morning to send it. When I looked in the morning the email body was blank.

Not the first time this has happened, but the first time in a while.
Chris Andruszko 1 Reputation point

Feb 24, 2022, 3:33 PM

Has there been ANY update to this situation AT ALL??? I just lost a draft that had all the files paths to over 200 projects I had worked on over the past 2.5 years. This was a crucial document to me and today it's completely BLANK. The Subject line is filled out still, but the contents are completely empty. I did not do this. This is an error with Outlook and considering how devastating of a glitch this is (and apparently common), you'd think they would have resolved this by now. I've never experienced anything like this with any other mailing service.
Dariusz Piekarski 6 Reputation points

Apr 1, 2022, 7:36 AM

This happened again to me!
How is even possible that the basic function as a draft might not work well?!

I am using the MSoffice on iMac (CAtalina 10.15.7) via desktop and on MacBook pro (Mojave 10.14.6) via webmail.
If there is anything I could do to restore it, please let me know.
This must be a serious bag since I am also very often losing the updated information for MS Office packages. When I open on a macbook a doc or excel file created on iMac and work on it, save it and open it another dayon iMAC, very often the files are not updated and since the files were saved on the external disk, the updated information on macbook is lost!! The only solution I found right now is to saved it with a different name. When I forget about it I can loose lots of time - very annoying!
Please, MSOffice teams, these are serious bugs/issues that should be fixed.

Kind regards,

Darek
Dariusz Piekarski 6 Reputation points

Apr 1, 2022, 7:41 AM

Still not solved, not answered. Is there anything we could do to restore it, please let us know.
How is even possible that the basic function as a draft might not work well?!

I am using the MSOffice on iMac (Catalina 10.15.7) via desktop and on MacBook pro (Mojave 10.14.6) via webmail.

Problems with updated files on thwo different systems I do have also with MS Office packages. When I open on a MacBook a doc or excel file created on iMac and work on it, save it and open it another day on iMAC, very often the files are not updated and since the files were saved on the external disk, the updated information on macbook is lost because somehow the iMAC old file seems to be more relevant, newer, or whatever the reason! The only solution I found right now is to save it with a different name, but sometimes I am forgeting doing it and even a week of work can be lost - this is unacceptable.
Please, MS Office teams, these are serious bugs/issues that should be fixed.
Chris Lewis 6 Reputation points

Jun 1, 2022, 10:51 PM

I've also experienced the same problem: created draft in latest desktop Outlook, did 'Save' numerous times during the hour of so I've been composing the draft email. Closed the draft email. Now when I look for it, it is completely missing!! I've searched the Draft folder and all folders to no avail. It is also not in the archive and not in webmail either. This is not the first time this has happened in the past year and is extremely aggravating. Please investigate this serious bug. How can anyone have any confidence in the software if the 'save' doesn't even work?
Chris Lewis 6 Reputation points

Jun 1, 2022, 10:55 PM

Note: The problem I described above is a random issue. I did a test shortly after the lost draft episode by creating a short test email which I 'saved' and it appeared in the draft folder. Very frustrating.
Dhirendra Singh Jodha 1 Reputation point

Aug 24, 2022, 1:57 PM

Can someone sort this out? today I lost very important information email which had data saved from many years? is there any way to recover the content?
Williams, David 1 Reputation point

Aug 24, 2022, 9:25 PM

I had an attachment on my draft and was able to recover it by searching for attachments on e-mails...otherwise I was F'ed. Good Luck!
XB70 5 Reputation points

Jun 4, 2023, 1:53 AM

I believe that this is an Outlook bug, as no useful answer has been provided. I am using Outlook 2021 fully updated, I do not have any archive settings in effect, etc., and yet after editing a draft, way too often ALL my edits are lost, and I have to start over. What a pain. There does not seem to be a way to save my work to prevent this and such edits are not automatically saved, rather they get lost if one moves his/her focus to another e-mail, or "goes" away, even if briefly, expecting to come back with one's last edits still there. Nope, gone. Where? This is NOT an answer, and this thread is NOT solved.
Kristina 5 Reputation points

Jun 12, 2023, 6:07 AM

I am so upset and annoyed. I literally updated a draft on a mobile outlook app, closed it, got back into it to check a note, closed it again and it disappeared the next time I went to open it. Vanished. I absolutely didn't delete it. Then I realized half my drafts say no content. What is wrong with people making this product?
W Baron 0 Reputation points

Jun 15, 2023, 1:14 AM

I just had the same thing happen too. I had saved a draft email on my PC, and later opened it in Outlook for android. It was blank and when I later went back to my PC it was blank there too.

My suspicion is that Outlook failed to load the content on android, and auto-save kicked in on the blank email wiping everything.

Needless to say that shouldn't happen, hours of work was lost despite frequent saving.
XB70 5 Reputation points

Jun 15, 2023, 2:26 AM

Having read through all these complaints and the purported answers or suggestions, it is clear that it doesn't matter which platform one is using Outlook from, in my case a software package (Office 2021, supposedly the last stand alone software version of Office, after which they were to go to subscription only, not sure if that ever happened) from Microsoft on a computer, fully updated, and fairly recent (2021). I open an e-mail, and begin editing it, as if to respond, or whatever, then if I go elsewhere, even briefly, often my edits are lost, and there doesn't seem to be a way to save them--perhaps an answer to that, would be a useful way to start--go elsewhere? Like look at a browser page, or do something else in Outlook, or whatever, if not staying in the e-mail opened and being edited, once I attempt to reopen it, it is either completely gone, or the edits are not there, as if I wasn't editing it at all. Ugh. Such a pain. Note that one does have to click on Reply or Forward or something even to be able to edit, so once that is done, there should also be a way to save the edits, or make it into a Draft--anyone? Back to which one can go to resume editing or whatever one intends to do with it. This should happen automatically and any such edited e-mails should automatically be saved in the appropriate Drafts folder, where one can find them reliably; that is, if Outlook worked properly. It does not. After performing even a minor edit, let alone anything major--God forbid, quite often if one does something else, opens another window or whatever, expecting to simply resume editing where one left off, one cannot find any draft, or possibly even a copy of the original e-mail, or if once can get back to the original e-mail, all one's edits are gone, as if one was never there editing it. Ugh. This is an Outlook bug, not proper behavior, and as far as I know--I could be wrong--not acknowledged as such by MS. Anyone on that--known acknowledged bug? Citation? I did customize my ribbon putting in a Save As command--note not Save Draft, as that was not available, but it will save the item in some folder outside of Outlook (of one's choice), however not in the appropriate drafts folder in Outlook--unless I can figure out where that is, and its name's possibly, assuming that I would have access to it sufficient to place another item into it, presumably to be opened by me again, hopefully by Outlook, if I double click the saved file name. Is this a work around, or idiocy? Does anyone have a better idea, how one can force a Draft to be saved after doing some editing on an e-mail? Should be trivial, right? If not something automatically done by Outlook, in any case.
TP 0 Reputation points

Jun 26, 2023, 3:38 AM

Same problem. My fix was to search in the main search field for a keyword from the lost draft. Magically, it appeared in the search results.
Bryan Marsh 5 Reputation points

Jul 17, 2023, 8:07 PM

I just had a draft email disappear after spending an hour attaching documents and fully detailing a situation for a design to an application engineer. There's no fix, there's no record of it existing, and the "recover deleted files" trick does nothing. The only fix I can figure out is to constantly make a redundant copy somewhere outside of outlook using the "save as" function from the file menu and email the message to yourself if you are unable to figure a way to work outside of Outlook.

This gives me just another reason to dislike Microsoft products. Between my Teams glitches and constant issues with Onedrive syncing, I'm constantly annoyed. This is why I will always be an Apple supporter and only use Microsoft products when absolutely required by my employer.
Freek Mooij 5 Reputation points

Feb 15, 2024, 6:41 PM

VERY FRUSTRATING worked on an email for 30 min. Looking up references and copied in text from other sources.
All gone, Not even in draft or saved some of it in draft.. Very disappointing and som much time wasted. After so many years of windows development I would have expected some more robustness.
Julie Copland 21 Reputation points

Dec 2, 2024, 8:15 PM

Is there any update to this or any fix? This is happening to a few of our users too

3 answers

Your answer

PetraB 21 Reputation points

Jun 30, 2021, 9:00 PM

Hey there. I just had this happen today! Was your issue ever resolved? My draft, like yours, has the subject matter but says no content. Arghhh
Gevaert, S. (Stefan) 11 Reputation points

Jul 9, 2021, 8:38 AM

I've had the exact same issue yesterday twice! I'm on a Macbook, it happened on my Desktop Mail but the content has also disappeared on web mail, has not been archived or deleted accidentally (I checked on Web Mail).

Extremely frustrating when composing important emails. The emails themselves are still there with the right date and subject and people CCd, but all content is gone.
Maria Olmedo Palomeque 26 Reputation points

Aug 9, 2021, 12:07 PM

This happens to me as well....I save drafts to send later in order to don't bother my team with emails after work hours. EVERYTIME I go into the mobile application and load my draft, THE DRAFT IS EMPTY. This causes unnecessary waste of time and it's extremely annoying.
Zarin Tasnim Isra 6 Reputation points

Aug 11, 2021, 5:40 AM

Almost a year later but this happened to me today!! I had been writing stuff in this draft for years and today everything except the subject line is gone! I know for a fact I haven't done anything. This is extremely frustrating.
Andy Twidle 6 Reputation points

Aug 13, 2021, 5:03 AM

Just suffered this today. Saved a draft, closed the window and when I re-opened it the content (including signature) was gone. Most frustrating.
John Walker 21 Reputation points

Sep 9, 2021, 4:26 PM

I have exactly the same issue as everyone above. Only using Outlook web app via browser (Edge and Safari; same results) as our corporate security policy doesn’t allow using the off-web app.

Composing an email in the browser page seems to have maybe a 5-minute time limit; if I exceed this the window closes and my content disappears. Primal scream!

The only thing saved to Drafts folder is the subject line. If I could at least extend the composition time it would help. Workaround for now is to write in notepad or notes.
Bill Swersey 1 Reputation point

Sep 29, 2021, 2:43 AM

Same here. Worked on a draft for a while but decided to wait until the morning to send it. When I looked in the morning the email body was blank.

Not the first time this has happened, but the first time in a while.
Chris Andruszko 1 Reputation point

Feb 24, 2022, 3:33 PM

Has there been ANY update to this situation AT ALL??? I just lost a draft that had all the files paths to over 200 projects I had worked on over the past 2.5 years. This was a crucial document to me and today it's completely BLANK. The Subject line is filled out still, but the contents are completely empty. I did not do this. This is an error with Outlook and considering how devastating of a glitch this is (and apparently common), you'd think they would have resolved this by now. I've never experienced anything like this with any other mailing service.
Dariusz Piekarski 6 Reputation points

Apr 1, 2022, 7:36 AM

This happened again to me!
How is even possible that the basic function as a draft might not work well?!

I am using the MSoffice on iMac (CAtalina 10.15.7) via desktop and on MacBook pro (Mojave 10.14.6) via webmail.
If there is anything I could do to restore it, please let me know.
This must be a serious bag since I am also very often losing the updated information for MS Office packages. When I open on a macbook a doc or excel file created on iMac and work on it, save it and open it another dayon iMAC, very often the files are not updated and since the files were saved on the external disk, the updated information on macbook is lost!! The only solution I found right now is to saved it with a different name. When I forget about it I can loose lots of time - very annoying!
Please, MSOffice teams, these are serious bugs/issues that should be fixed.

Kind regards,

Darek
Dariusz Piekarski 6 Reputation points

Apr 1, 2022, 7:41 AM

Still not solved, not answered. Is there anything we could do to restore it, please let us know.
How is even possible that the basic function as a draft might not work well?!

I am using the MSOffice on iMac (Catalina 10.15.7) via desktop and on MacBook pro (Mojave 10.14.6) via webmail.

Problems with updated files on thwo different systems I do have also with MS Office packages. When I open on a MacBook a doc or excel file created on iMac and work on it, save it and open it another day on iMAC, very often the files are not updated and since the files were saved on the external disk, the updated information on macbook is lost because somehow the iMAC old file seems to be more relevant, newer, or whatever the reason! The only solution I found right now is to save it with a different name, but sometimes I am forgeting doing it and even a week of work can be lost - this is unacceptable.
Please, MS Office teams, these are serious bugs/issues that should be fixed.
Chris Lewis 6 Reputation points

Jun 1, 2022, 10:51 PM

I've also experienced the same problem: created draft in latest desktop Outlook, did 'Save' numerous times during the hour of so I've been composing the draft email. Closed the draft email. Now when I look for it, it is completely missing!! I've searched the Draft folder and all folders to no avail. It is also not in the archive and not in webmail either. This is not the first time this has happened in the past year and is extremely aggravating. Please investigate this serious bug. How can anyone have any confidence in the software if the 'save' doesn't even work?
Chris Lewis 6 Reputation points

Jun 1, 2022, 10:55 PM

Note: The problem I described above is a random issue. I did a test shortly after the lost draft episode by creating a short test email which I 'saved' and it appeared in the draft folder. Very frustrating.
Dhirendra Singh Jodha 1 Reputation point

Aug 24, 2022, 1:57 PM

Can someone sort this out? today I lost very important information email which had data saved from many years? is there any way to recover the content?
Williams, David 1 Reputation point

Aug 24, 2022, 9:25 PM

I had an attachment on my draft and was able to recover it by searching for attachments on e-mails...otherwise I was F'ed. Good Luck!
XB70 5 Reputation points

Jun 4, 2023, 1:53 AM

I believe that this is an Outlook bug, as no useful answer has been provided. I am using Outlook 2021 fully updated, I do not have any archive settings in effect, etc., and yet after editing a draft, way too often ALL my edits are lost, and I have to start over. What a pain. There does not seem to be a way to save my work to prevent this and such edits are not automatically saved, rather they get lost if one moves his/her focus to another e-mail, or "goes" away, even if briefly, expecting to come back with one's last edits still there. Nope, gone. Where? This is NOT an answer, and this thread is NOT solved.
Kristina 5 Reputation points

Jun 12, 2023, 6:07 AM

I am so upset and annoyed. I literally updated a draft on a mobile outlook app, closed it, got back into it to check a note, closed it again and it disappeared the next time I went to open it. Vanished. I absolutely didn't delete it. Then I realized half my drafts say no content. What is wrong with people making this product?
W Baron 0 Reputation points

Jun 15, 2023, 1:14 AM

I just had the same thing happen too. I had saved a draft email on my PC, and later opened it in Outlook for android. It was blank and when I later went back to my PC it was blank there too.

My suspicion is that Outlook failed to load the content on android, and auto-save kicked in on the blank email wiping everything.

Needless to say that shouldn't happen, hours of work was lost despite frequent saving.
TP 0 Reputation points

Jun 26, 2023, 3:38 AM

Same problem. My fix was to search in the main search field for a keyword from the lost draft. Magically, it appeared in the search results.
Bryan Marsh 5 Reputation points

Jul 17, 2023, 8:07 PM

I just had a draft email disappear after spending an hour attaching documents and fully detailing a situation for a design to an application engineer. There's no fix, there's no record of it existing, and the "recover deleted files" trick does nothing. The only fix I can figure out is to constantly make a redundant copy somewhere outside of outlook using the "save as" function from the file menu and email the message to yourself if you are unable to figure a way to work outside of Outlook.

This gives me just another reason to dislike Microsoft products. Between my Teams glitches and constant issues with Onedrive syncing, I'm constantly annoyed. This is why I will always be an Apple supporter and only use Microsoft products when absolutely required by my employer.
Freek Mooij 5 Reputation points

Feb 15, 2024, 6:41 PM

VERY FRUSTRATING worked on an email for 30 min. Looking up references and copied in text from other sources.
All gone, Not even in draft or saved some of it in draft.. Very disappointing and som much time wasted. After so many years of windows development I would have expected some more robustness.
Julie Copland 21 Reputation points

Dec 2, 2024, 8:15 PM

Is there any update to this or any fix? This is happening to a few of our users too

Answer 1

Manu Philip 20,106 MVP

Oct 17, 2020, 3:54 PM

Check webmail and see if you are finding the expected draft message there
Check if you have set any archive policy at exchange or outlook which caused the archival of the email to a different location
Check deleted items folder for the draft. Recover deleted items feature also helps to restore the recently emptied mail from deleted items folder

Answer 2

Hi @Dom ,
What's the type of your account(POP, IMAP, Exchange)?
Could you find the draft in the Web Mail?

I looked at the email today and see it is completely blank.

As I know, there's no option in Outlook that could make the draft message disappeared and just turn to blank. In order to further analyze if your original draft is disappeared, please first search for it in your Web Mail.

If the original draft couldn't be searched out, in the point of Outlook client, archive policy may cause the message move to other location as Manu mentioned, which may cause you couldn't search out it. It's suggested to check the setting of auto archive in your Outlook (File>Options>Advanced>Auto-archive setting).

Also, accidentally deleting it permanently also may cause the message couldn't be searched out. If you are using exchange account, the option of "Recover deleted items from server" could recover the items that be deleted recently(choose the “Deleted Items” folder> click Recover Deleted Items from Server). Otherwise, I'm afraid the item couldn't be recovered.

Besides, if the original draft could be found in your Web Mail and the issue only happen to the Outlook client, it may be related to the synchronization error between client and server, it's suggested to create a new profile and re-add your account to check(Control Panel>Mail>Show Profiles>Add>type a profile name>re-add your account).

Hope this could be helpful to you.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
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Jade Liang-MSFT 9,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

Oct 23, 2020, 10:28 AM

Hi @Dom ,
Does this issue have any upgrades? If it has been resolved, please click "Accept as answer" to mark useful post or share your solution, your action would benefit others who have similar issues. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to post back. Thanks!
SCOTT KERMAN 11 Reputation points

Nov 11, 2021, 3:33 AM

I don't think you understand the situation -- the draft is still in the drafts folder. The to: and subject: text still intact. However, the content of the email -- the body of the email -- disappears.

Why does that happen?
Alezeb, Edham 1 Reputation point

Sep 14, 2022, 8:34 PM

Had the same issue and just searched Web Mail and found it...!

Answer 3

Venkata Satish Namburi 0

Feb 17, 2023, 2:02 PM

I had the same issue today. I was writing a draft mail and it suddenly disappeared. Not sure if i pressed some keys but i was able to find it in Archive folder.

Julea 0 Reputation points

Mar 31, 2023, 9:08 AM

FOUND missing contents of my draft email:

Yesterday this was the second time this had happened to me, and I managed to solve it before, but couldn't remember how. I use Microsft Outlook 2013, part of the office package on my laptop, not a mobile phone.

When you write an email and click " SAVE" the email as you know will place itself in the draft folder. If you are offline ( not conected to the internet) when doing this, it creates a problem if you then later open your emails and go on line. Outlook moves draft emails or any contents your typed whilst offline to the "conflict folder".

This can be found by clicking the 3 dots ( 2013 addtion) to the right of where it says "Mail Calendar People Tasks . . . " This has a small list, and within it has a folder called" Folders" click this and it wil open up on the left under all your other folders , a folder called "Conflict". That is where my complete draft message was stored.

Huge sigh of relief !!!!!

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Lost draft email

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3 answers

Your answer