why is ipad losing draft emails

Ralph9430,

I am attempting to recover an email I was working on and I lost when I switched to safari without saving it as a draft. My iPad is not responsive to step 3 - no wiggle.

Like everyone else I lost a draft email that I thought I had saved. I tried almost all tricks on this list, but with no success. By chance today I found my lost draft. I searched Spotlight for (hit command and space bar at same time to access Spotlight Search) the name of the recipient that I had been composing my draft email to, and lo and behold all of the previously lost drafts of my email to this recipient appeared in the Spotlight Search results. I was able to access and send my previously lost emails this way. I have no idea where these lost drafts were being stored, but at least I was able to recover them. I'm using an iPad 3 and running 8.1.1

To prevent it try a Reset [Hold the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons down together for 10 seconds or so (until the Apple logo appears) and then release. When the screen goes blank power On again in the normal way.] It is absolutely/appsolutely safe!

Until your problem is fixed why not type your message on an app such as Pages and then copy and paste i into an email. You will always have a backup!

You cannot recover what went missing in your circumstances.

I'm assuming they are not in the Draft folder either? Do you see the email listed and it is blank or is it not there at all?

If not there at all you might be inadvertently tapping Delete instead of Save when you Cancel an email you are working on.

If they are blank, and I experienced this for the first time the other day, restart Mail by

1. Tap the Home button to go the Home screen.

2. Double tap the Home button to show the list of recently used apps at the bottom of the screen.

3. Tap and hold on Mail until the apps wiggle.

4. Tap the minus sign on Mail.

5. Tap anywhere above that bottom row to go back to the Home screen.

6. Restart Mail and see if the contents appears in the draft email.

Hey guys,

Just thought I'd share a solution that may work for you if your drafts folder goes missing. Try opening a new message and just adding in an email address or say 'test' in the subject field. Now close it and save as a draft. Sometimes it allows the folder to show back up and also it may bring back drafts that were seemingly missing.

Best of luck!

Nate: This worked for me using a MS Outlook mail account through my ipad Mail app. Great tip- Thanks!

You just saved my bacon - I thought I had lost half a day's work in the form of a long and complex email reply - I googled in desperation and found this and it worked! Very many thanks

+2

This works in iOS too!!

This still works on iOS 8! Thank you.

None of this worked for me. I spent 2 hours writing an email, and suddenly the screen blacked out for a second and when it clicked back on the email was suddenly blank, like a new email. Two hourswork on a very important email..

I've discovered that if you flick the mail setting on and off temporarily, drafts also disappear and can't be recovered.

Thanks, worked just fine as described! Saved my day...