How do I stop my sent emails appearing as a Draft duplicate in my inbox?

Question

How do I stop my sent emails appearing as a Draft duplicate in my inbox?

Anonymous

I’ve recently found that all my sent emails are also appearing in my inbox with the word DRAFT in red in brackets appearing before my sent address. The email is not found in my Draft folder and when I check it is always also in my Sent folder. This is very annoying and confusing, why is it happening and how do I stop it?

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Answer 1

Hi Jules Reid,

Thank you for your post in the Microsoft Community. I understand how confusing and frustrating it is to see your sent emails show up as Drafts in your Inbox, even though they also appear normally in the Sent folder. Let me explain what's causing this and what you can do about it.

Why this happens:
In New Outlook, when using certain IMAP-connected accounts (like Gmail, Yahoo, or others), the system can misinterpret the syncing of sent messages. It sometimes shows them as “Draft” in your Inbox, even though the email was actually sent and stored correctly in the Sent folder.
This behavior is usually because of:
• The IMAP server saving a copy of the sent email.
• Outlook saving another copy.
• New Outlook incorrectly displaying both versions — one as a “Draft”.

Please try the following steps to resolve this:
1. Turn off saving Sent Items in New Outlook
• Open New Outlook.
• Go to Settings (⚙️ icon in the top right) → Mail → Compose and reply.
• Scroll down to Message handling.
• Look for Save messages > Disable the option: “Save a copy of sent items in the Sent Items folder”.
If your mail server (e.g. Gmail) already saves a copy, you don’t need Outlook to save another one. Disabling this will avoid duplicate versions.

2. Disable conversation view
• Click the Settings gear (upper right) → Mail → Layout → Conversation view → select Off.
• This prevents sent and draft items from appearing alongside Inbox messages.

After you apply these changes, send yourself a test email. You should now see only 1 copy in Sent folder, with no “[DRAFT]” duplicate in your Inbox.

Thank you for your patience and please feel free to let me know how it goes!

Warm regards, Winnie – MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist