iPad Mail Troubles - Saved Drafts Disappear, Sent Mail Doesn't Show

Hi all, I just had a similar problem. I took a draft in my drafts folder, modified it and pressed send. I got a pop up saying "cannot send mail - check the settings for the outgoing servers ....." and my e-mail just seems to have disappeared. And, of course, it was an important one. The big question is where can I find it? I have searched all mail folders and there is no sign of it. If anyone has advice I would be most grateful. Cheers

Sorry to say, but I suspect it is simply gone. In my case looked everywhere and even had my email provider restore all my recently deleted email—the one I lost was nowhere to be found.

At this point, I am simply keeping open a tab in Safari with my webmail set to auto-login.

These things are still an issue with some randomeness to it.

It seems the mail settings on the server account matter alot. For instance, I can find my work mail drafts and open them. Unfortunately they open as inbox mails not allowing me to edit and send, but forward and reply, which isn't very useful!

I took the advice of Autrement and had to take it one step further to fix the problem as all my settings were already showing that drafts were being saved to the server as opposed to on my iPad. I went into settings as described and changed the setting to on my iPad and then back again to on the server and everything works fine now thankfully. I "lost" two very important e-mails before I read this thread and Autrement's solution so THANK YOU for suggesting the fix.

I had the same issue, I looked in all my email accounts! I finally decided to look in ICloud folder, then in drafts and all my drafts were strangely all there!

So I don't if it depends on if your draft has an attachtment, but I found all my missing drafts in there.

This thread is obviously old now and I'm sure all of you will have solved your lost draft email problems and moved on. But it's the closest subject matter to the issue I have been having so here goes...

Like many of you, I thought I had saved an email (happened to be a very long one which had taken me absolutely ages to put together but I was still researching info for) then couldn't find it a couple of hours later. I did a search for an unusual word in the "lost" email and found it ... in Drafts ... but dated 16 September 2012, and I was doing the email last Sunday, 20 January 2013! I didn't even have the iPad last September! Two things:

If any of you can't find a draft anywhere, try looking down the folder in case it is nestling amongst drafts of months ago (maybe you don't have any old drafts in your folder as I do, though). Or try searching for an uncommon word you might have used in it (ie not a word that will bring up lots of emails).

Does anyone know why an email might suddenly give itself a random date of weeks earlier? I have since "lost" another email and found it again (this time dated August 2012) so I would love to know how to stop this annoying glitch.

When I eventually finished the emails and sent them, they showed in my Sent items with the correct date of sending.

I was writing an article on a really tight deadline. I started it on my computer but then I had to travel, so I saved the text as a draft e-mail in GMail, then opened it up on my iPad. I finished the article, hit send, and it popped up with an SMTP error, and then the article was GONE. No Outbox folder, not in Drafts or Sent Mail. This is the first time I have attempted to use the iPad for anything productivity related. It will be the last, too. I am really unhappy to see that Apple has had cause to know about this issue since 2010 and it still hasn't been addressed.

Had iPad 2 with iOS 5 - no problem at all for years in a row. Never lost an email.

Just bought iPad 3 with iOS 6 - drafts / outbox disappear with no reason.

I was typing emails from an airplane and hitting send (disconected). When connected, I expected to have my e-mails sent, but they was just vanished. No one received it and they are not on my iPad or Gmail server.

By the way, if you try to add a Exchange Gmail account, apparently it is not supported by Google anymore.

Several business emails was lost and never reached detination until I noticed the problem.

IPAD BECAME UNTRUSTABLE FOR WORK!

This problem is really severe and should be THE most important fix ever.

Can I trust anything else on my iPad? Notes? Photos? Apps?

I just had something very much the same happen. I had a draft I have kept for years adding important links etc to for safe keeping in Gmail. I opened this draft to grab some info the other day on my Ipad 4. I went to access it again today and its gone. Its not in the trash. Its not in the draft folder. Cant find it. Very frustrating..

This is appaling.

I just lost my university application for my masters course because of this problem.

I am appaled Apple - all high-gloss on the outside - rubbish; not-a-single-f given when it comes to things like these.

Millions of people use your software. Get it right.

Putting iPad on ebay, it's obviously just a toy, made to make people buy apps.

STILL having the same problem with my iPad 3. I TOTALLY agree that it's absurd that Apple hasn't addressed such a long standing issue. The worst part is I never know if the mail went through or didn't! It will show up in my sent items folders on both the iPad and the phone even though it hasn't been sent in reality. The only way I KNOW it will be sent is if I re send it from my phone. VERY frustrating!

This is an iOS problem, not an iPad problem.

This problem is affecting a lot of people.

I'm sure the person who wrote the Gmail sync code at Apple, did their job fine.

I'm sure the person who wrote the code for local backups, did their job fine too.

The person who was supposed to write code to check that either of these things really does happen before hibernating/quitting the app - well, evidently this person does not exist.

Apple you have Billions. I know you need reserves, but please hire 1 guy who does nothing but use your products, and write down all the bugs that your regular engineers and testers will mark 'not a bug'. Give him his own bug tracker and let your managers hand them out to the departments.

Hire 1 guy for every product line, and you might stay on top.

This problem is only happening on my iPad in my case. My iPhone 4S has no issues what so ever when it comes to mail and both are running the current iOS?

Again I agree that Apple should have engineers who do nothing but use their products and when an obvious bug such as this appears, ADDRESS IT! I won't even go into the nice little swoosh sound that "says" your mail HAS been sent when in fact it has not.

For me this problem has been going on for over a year now. Since they now have competition with their actual product line, they need to step it up in the customer service end or this loyal Apple user is going to be looking elsewhere when my current contract is up.

I have experienced this problem on a few occasions over the last few months, the most recent occurrence being when I lost 2 emails yesterday, after which I decided to Google it to see if I was alone. Evidently I am not alone (there are also lots of other threads on it in the Apple support forums and elsewhere) and now I see the scale of the issue and the fact that it has been going on for years, I am absolutely appalled at Apple's apparent indifference and/or incompetence.

All of my lost emails have happened whilst using my work email account, which is an Exchange account. I compose the email, send it and it seems to go. However, on checking Sent Items there is no sign of the email, it is not in Drafts, nor Trash and when I check with the recipient they confirm they have not received it. In one particular case the email was very long and took me half an hour to compose, at which point the iPad almost went out of the window.

Mine is an iPad 2 and the issue has occurred in both iOS 6 and iOS 7.

Apple sorely needs a major kick up the backside for not dealing with this. Coincidentally, I was considering upgrading my iPad 2 to the new iPad, but now I know the scale of this problem there is no way I would consider using an iPad for work purposes until Apple confirms the issue is fixed. I was also considering buying 10 or so iPad Minis to equip some of my staff, but I will now not be doing so.

Can I check if it was an e-mail you started composing on your desktop and then returned to in your iPad to finish and send? That was the scenario when I lost the article I was composing in a hurry on a deadline.

I've installed the GMail app on my iPad and I'm going to see if it does the same thing. Will report back.