Drafts & scheduled email

Two folders hold mail that hasn't been sent yet: Drafts for messages you're still writing, and Scheduled for messages queued to go out at a future time. Nothing in either folder has left your mailbox, so anything there can still be changed or thrown away.

Drafts

• Everything unsent ends up here — new messages, and the replies and forwards you started inside a conversation.
• Open one to carry on. It comes back with the recipients, subject, body and attachments exactly as you left them.
• A half-answered conversation is marked. The thread shows a Draft badge, so you can spot it without opening Drafts — see Replies, forwards & threads.
• Delete one you no longer want. A draft is only a draft; removing it sends nothing and tells nobody.

How saving works

You never have to save by hand, and knowing when it happens explains the indicator in the compose window:

• It saves a couple of seconds after you stop typing, not on every keystroke — so a long message is not saved fifty times while you write it.
• Only real changes are saved. If nothing has altered since the last save, nothing is sent to the server.
• An empty window leaves nothing behind. Open compose, change your mind, close it again, and no draft is created — Drafts only fills up with messages you actually started.
• The indicator tells you where you stand. Saving… while it works, then Saved, which fades away on its own a moment later because it is a receipt rather than a state.
• A failure stays on screen. If saving fails the message says so and stays there until the next attempt succeeds — so if you can still see it, copy your text somewhere safe before closing the window.

Scheduled

• Messages you queued with Schedule send wait here until their time comes — see Composing email for setting one up.
• The message shows when it will go, written out in full at the top, in your own time zone rather than the server's.
• The queue is checked every minute, so a message leaves within about a minute of the time you picked rather than to the second.
• It sends whether or not you are signed in. The queue runs on the server, so you can close the browser or turn the machine off.

Changing a scheduled message

A queued message cannot be edited where it sits. There is one button on it, Edit, and choosing it takes the message out of the queue:

1. Open the message in Scheduled: Choose it from the folder as you would any other message.
2. Choose Edit: The schedule is cancelled there and then, and the message reopens in a compose window with everything as you left it. A notice confirms it.
3. Make your changes: Recipients, subject, body and attachments are all editable again, because it is now an ordinary draft.
4. Schedule it again, or send it: Pick a new time, or send it straight away. Either one takes it out of Drafts.

To call a message off altogether, choose Edit to take it out of the queue, then delete the draft it leaves behind.