Mac OS 12.2 Monterey - Mail program auto-saving drafts in Draft Mailbox every minute or so, HOW DO I STOP IT??

Interesting! Testing seems to show that it is 100% a Mac Mail problem with nothing to do with Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo, or "Me". While I'm composing a mail message, every minute or so, a copy of the draft goes into the Trash mail folder.

Extremely annoying!!! Last evening I composed a fairly long multi-paragraph email and there were over 40 progressive copies of it in my Trash folder!!!!

I have four active accounts on my Mac Mail application. They are iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Our primary email uses the Gmail service. When I compose a "Reply" to an incoming email, I have the issue. When I compose a "New" email, it goes out with my "me.com" email service. In both cases I get the multiple progressive versions in the TRASH folder.

I tested it on my iCloud email, as well, and it did the same thing. This morning I spent about an hour and a half composing a long email and when I went to my "Trash" folder in Mac Mail, I had over a hundred copies of my message, at varying states of completion.

I wish I could edit my original post, because like I said in a couple of replies above, the copies are showing up in the Trash folder, not the Deleted folder.

I AM WRONG!! It is NOT saving them in the Drafts folder, IT IS SAVING THEM in the TRASH folder. I will try the save mode.

Re-booted in Safe mode, and the problem is still there. As I continued to type into the body of the message, the draft copies began accumulating in the TRASH folder.

Draft folder was what I said in the original post! Dang!! It is the Trash folder where they are appearing.