Draft emails disappear?

Question

Hi all-

I've noticed that sometimes my draft emails seem to disappear. I tried to replicate it unsuccessfully, I wasn't sure what factors might cause it.

It just happened again, so I figured I'd describe the situation and see if anyone can explain what is happening, and if I should be doing something different.

Office 2016 x32, on Win7 x64, with o365 on the back end. This is my work PC

When I click reply inside the preview pane, I can start composing a reply. a bracketed "[Draft]" indicator shows that Outlook recognizes that I am drafting a reply. Often, I can click away and do other things, and the [Draft] will remain in the main email list, and I can click back to the thread and see my draft reply.

Sometimes, the draft disappears. It is not in my draft email folder, outbox, or attached to the original email..

Just now, I had the following happen.

(1) reply to email

(2) replace send-to email address; instead of the person who forwarded me the email, copy/paste the vendor's email address from the body of the message

(3) start typing my reply

(4) go to my email list to search for any early replies on this thread I may have missed. finding none, go back to the top of the inbox with no email filters.

Boom, the draft is gone. It isn't attached to the email, or in my draft folder, or as far as I can tell, anywhere else.

I'm guessing that at least in this case, changing the email address somehow breaks Outlook's ability to tell it is still part of the same thread? I'm not sure that all of the times this happens that it is related to a change in address, but I'm certainly looking out for that now.

Any thoughts on why this happens, and any automated ways I can prevent it from happening again? For example, does breaking the reply out into a separate window (instead of the preview pane) trigger saving of the draft?

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi KHD2016,

Ok, please let us know the result after you test to change the save time.

If you changed the time of saving to 1 and emails have been kept for1 minute, however the issue persists, please check after you save the draft email (double click the email you want to reply in the email list to a separate windows and  click File and then Save), if the draft emails will disappear. If not, you can perform it as a workaround.

And you mentioned after the draft emails missing, you can search it out in your mailbox, may I know where you can search it out? You can put your cursor on the draft email and the folder will show up. Please send a screenshot to us regarding this, and meanwhile, you can try to create a new profile and open outlook with the new profile to check if the issue persists. Please remember not to remove the old profile in case of data loss. Besides, please provide us your outlook version to us.

Thanks,

Iry

Answer 2

I am continuing to test, but I don't think the timing is the only issue. For example, there are times that I start creating a draft reply, it completely disappears (is no longer attached to the email thread in my inbox, and is not in my drafts folder)- but if I search for a set of keywords that I know are in that email thread (and therefore in the quoted text of my reply), the draft email does show up in the search pane.

Answer 3

Hi KHD2016,

Is there any update?

Thanks,

Iry

Answer 4

Hi KHD2016,

Is there any update?

Thanks,

Iry

Answer 5

Hi KHD2016,

From your description, I understand that sometimes when you reply an email and then do other things, the draft email will disappear.

Actually, when you reply an email, even you see the [Draft] before the subject of the email, it also needs to take some minutes to save the email to draft folder. The times of saving to draft, you can set by yourself: File > Options > Mail > Save message.

If the email you composed hasn’t kept for the minutes you set, it won’t be saved to draft folder when you click others and also you cannot find it. You can set the number of minutes lower to meet your requirement.

Please contact us if you have any concern.

Thanks,

Iry