Can't delete mail from Drafts folder

may i suggest you rebuild your mailbox when such an issue arises. to rebuild a mailbox, go to mailbox>rebuild.

hope this helps

Have the same problem except it's in my inbox folder. Any one knows what to do with those messages?

I upgraded the system and than imported mail folders from my second drive and some of them just went nuts on me. They don't show anything in the message area and I can't delete them.

Thanks!
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just rebuild, select the specific inbox you would like to rebuild, then go to mailbox>rebuild.

hope this helps

The rebuild function is grayed out for the Drafts mailbox on my system. Not much help. I've seen this a couple of times and am suffering from it right now again.
Tried a reboot but that did not clear it.

Tom

I take it back. The function is available if you select a single account. However, it fails to clear out the deleted messages...

you need to select the specific mailbox, as in the mailbox associated with a specific mail account, for example if you have more than one mail account, then you will have more than one draft mailbox, and you need to toggle the little arrow next to the main drafts mailbox to show the specific drafts mailboxes, and then select one of these, and then rebuild.

hope this helps

I am having the same problem. I upgraded on October 25th, and a draft remains from that date.

Specifically, I wrote an email, saved a draft, and never sent it. I then upgraded from Tiger 10.4.11, to Leopard 10.5, and have not been able to delete the draft since.

1) I toggle the arrow next to my Drafts, and select my Gmail account (which has the undeleteable draft).
2) I then highlight the draft, and press delete (both back-space delete, and hard delete have been tried).
3) Leaving my Gmail drafts selected, I click Mailbox > Rebuild, and the message comes back from the dead.
4) I have tried the inverse of #3, and tried Rebuild first, then deleting the draft. It still returns.

Your help is much appreciated 🙂

UPDATE:

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of this before, but a solution I've found is to edit the draft, address it to yourself (or a non-existent email address), and simply send the draft.

It has finally gone where drafts belong.

Thanks all for your help and contributions 🙂

When Leopard arrived, my daughter tried to send a 149MB video clip as an attachment in Mail. Of course, it stuck, so she tried a few more times. Now the Drafts folder is full of such. I have 'Removed Attachments' using the menu, deleted the files in Finder, resent them to myself, junked them, but they still reappear and processing them slows Mail down to be unusable. Window>Connection Doctor>Show Detail shows a torrent of data, presumably video files, being sent.
I think I have a workaround. My Account is IMAP. By converting it to POP [see Apple Help pages] I have cut out most synchronisation with the server. I can delete the drafts. And they stay deleted! The lost convenience of IMAP sync is a small price to pay.

Thank you for this solution!
I'd been having the same problem. Sent the messages to myself then deleted them.
Nothing else seemed to work, rebuilding, etc.
Thanks dgrebb.

I have also experienced this problem - it affects Mail drafts created under Tiger, before upgrade to Leopard. I can suggest two solutions:

1. Email the drafts to yourself (if only a small number)

2.
Close Mail.
In Finder go to "GO" (drop down bar) menu Click on "HOME" (or shift-command-H)
Look for the "LIBRARY" folder and Click on it.
Look for the "MAIL" folder and Click on it.
Here you will see folders .
For POP accounts you will see the folders will start with POP-(then your email address with incoming server)
Select and open the folder
Select and open Drafts.mbx
Move all contents of Drafts.mbx) to trash
(Repeat for other POP account folders)

Now go back to mail and open mail (the drafts will still be there, minus attachments)
Select the drafts sub-folder for each POP account (left hand menu)
Rebuild the folders (Mailbox menu > Rebuild)
The drafts will now disappear and the folders will empty.

Drafts created in Leopard are not affected.

Good luck!