Before knowing about a draft e-mail and how to edit it, let us first get some basic information about e-mails.
An e-mail or electronic mail is one of the most necessary internet-based services used by people all over the world. It allows you to send messages from one corner of the world to the other using internet service. This exchange of messages takes place within seconds. Sometimes it takes even less than a second. It would be hard to imagine a world without an e-mail service. Before knowing more about what a draft email is, let us understand the reasons for popularity of e-mail as a medium of communication.
Reasons of popularity
E-mail service owes its popularity to its excellent features. Since its invention, high speed was one of its most exciting features. We know decades ago sending paper-mails via post was a common practice. Against the background of a service that was slow, e-mail that was instant seemed to work like magic.
Also, the conventional mail service did not guarantee timely delivery of mails or delivery at all. (Remember there was no tracking feature back then.) This made e-mails an indispensable service for offices and firms for business communication.
Today we see email has evolved itself much. Now it is used for all fields from education to health services to transportation. Also, it is cheaper than paper-mail since you do not have to pay anything for the service. The only charges you pay are for the internet service.
Modern Features
The modern e-mail is equipped with many features. Remember that different email services may offer different features. Here you can find out about general features found with most providers. Some of them are:
1. Send e-mail to many receivers. In this feature you also have a choice of sending an email to many people without any of them knowing that it has been sent to others.
2. Compose and save a draft. This is a very useful feature of the modern day email service. A draft email is a saved copy of an email that you compose partially. If you need to compose a long email you can do so in parts. You do not need to compose the entire mail in one step. What you compose in one sitting gets saved and you can edit it later on. The previously saved part can be edited before finalizing and sending the email. Such draft e-mails can be accessed in drafts section.
3. Send e-mail automatically at a scheduled time. In this feature you can schedule an e-mail to be sent on a particular day and time. You do not have to remember sending it. This is an indispensable feature of the e-mail service now-a-days as we tend to forget sending mails in our busy work schedule.
4. Auto save e-mail addresses. This is a feature that allows you to save e-mail addresses of your contacts. Once you enter the initial characters of their email address, the full address appears automatically. E-mail addresses used for the first time also get saved automatically.
5. Automatic replies to e-mails. In this feature you can save some preset replies that can be sent automatically.
6. Time and date appear on mails automatically.
7. You can get notifications for mails that failed to deliver.
8. Images, videos, documents and all kinds of files can be sent as attachments with mails. One can even insert links of files saved in cloud storage.
9. You can insert signatures that are appended at the end of every e-mail you send.
10. Mobile applications for sending and receiving e-mails are also available. These are highly popular these days.
11. Some popular e-mail services also have automatic sentence completion feature using prediction.
Draft e-mails and their utility
In simple terms, draft e-mails are those e-mails that you haven’t yet sent. They get saved in the drafts section of the e-mails and can be retrieved whenever you like. They remain in that folder forever.
It is important to understand that a draft e-mail is not the same as an e-mail in outbox. An e-mail in outbox is one which has been sent from your end but it is still on its way. It could be due to a network issue that delays sending the e-mail. It can also be due to heavy files that have been attached with the mail, that are taking a long time to upload.
How do you create a draft e-mail?
A draft e-mail is created when you type or create an e-mail but do not hit the send button.
One of these three things may happen to you if you do not send a partially or fully composed e-mail:
1. You may close the e-mail window or tab. If you close the compose-mail window deliberately or accidentally, the e-mail is saved in the form of a draft. In this way, the draft e-mail feature is highly crucial in the present time. Any accidental closing of the e-mail window might happen with anyone and lead to data loss.
You may find an e-mail in the drafts section and be surprised sometimes. That happens when you composed a mail but forgot to hit the send button. But do not worry as this draft feature always has your back.
2. You may have some other urgent task at hand and you may decide to postpone your e-mail business for some time. In that case you can press the ‘save and close’ button to save the e-mail. Now this saved e-mail would be found in the drafts section.
3. You may choose to discard the mail. For this you can directly hit the discard button. The e-mail gets discarded forever.
Remember that what you type and edit gets saved in a fraction of about three seconds. When you press the Esc key, the e-mail gets saved and the compose-window closes. You come back to the Inbox.
Locating and editing draft e-mails
1. There is a list of folders on the left side where all e-mails are grouped as per the type. There you can find the ‘drafts’ folder. Here you can see your unsent draft mails arranged from the newest to the oldest.
2. Sometimes you may not see the ‘Drafts’ folder in the menu. In this case you can open the mail settings, then choose labels and then go to ‘Drafts’. There you can set the folder to ‘show’. Now it will start showing in the list of folders.
Once you locate the draft e-mail you are looking for, you can open it. The compose-window will open and all your previous work of that e-mail will show up. From here you can choose to edit or add content.
3. You can click anywhere on the white fields you want to edit. You may choose ‘To’ field and change the receiver e-mail address or add more addresses. You can also send a carbon copy or blind carbon-copy of the e-mail to different recipients. Once you start typing out an e-mail address, address suggestions will automatically show up. You can choose the complete address from the list.
4. You may change the subject line by clicking on the next field and editing the text there.
5. You may of course edit the main text of the e-mail by clicking on the large field in the center. You may add a signature in the end.
6. You can also attach files if you need.
7. You can choose to change the formatting, font or color of your e-mail text using the tools located on the top or bottom of the compose-window.
8. You can now choose to send the mail. Once sent, it will appear in the ‘Sent items.’ Do remember to review the e-mail well before finally sending it.
9. If you are still unsure of sending the e-mail, you can once again close the compose window and the e-mail will be saved as draft. You can also press Ctrl+S to save it whenever you like. Remember, once sent you cannot ‘unsend’ the e-mail.
What more can you do with drafts folder?
You can do other things with the Drafts folder for optimum use of this feature.
1. You can select your drafts by checking the box and then send them to other folders. You can even send them to your inbox.
2. You can sort them from oldest to newest also. For this you need to click on the number range of e-mails showing in the top right corner. Then you can change your selection to ‘oldest’.
3. You can mark your drafts as ‘unread’. Using this feature can help drive your attention to drafts you need to work on and send.
4. You can add some draft e-mails to your tasks.
5. You can mark some drafts as important, give them a label, star them or create a filter for them.
