I accidently deleted an important and long draft that I was writing when looking at attatched images, is there a way to recover it?

Question

I accidently deleted an important and long draft that I was writing when looking at attatched images, is there a way to recover it?

Kevin Vill 0

The same button used to close the preview of an attached image is also used to confirm draft deletion. Since the image preview is a little clunky when loading and closing, I hit Escape. It looked like it closed the draft, but instead the draft was deleted. Even worse, it does not appear in my Deleted Items folder. It is completely gone, and Ctrl Z does not work.

You should remove the draft discard when using Escape, there is absolutely no need for it when it is the same button for closing a preview of an attatchment.

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Kevin,

I’m sorry to hear that you lost such an important draft, and I appreciate you sharing the details of what happened.

Since the draft is not in the Deleted Items folder, please open Deleted Items and select Recover items deleted from this folder at the top of the message list:

Search for the draft based on its subject, recipient, or approximate deletion time. If you find it, select it and choose Restore.

User's image

You may also refresh Outlook on the web and check the Drafts folder again. If you use Outlook on another device, such as Outlook for Windows or mobile, check the Drafts folder there as well in case a synchronized copy is still available.

If the draft is not available in Drafts, Deleted Items, or Recoverable Items, it may no longer be recoverable, particularly if the latest content had not been saved or synchronized before the draft was discarded.

Regarding the behavior of the Escape key, if you would like to suggest a change to this functionality, you may consider sharing your feedback through the Outlook · Community. When submitting your feedback, please include the steps you described, particularly that pressing Escape was intended to close the attachment preview but instead resulted in the draft being discarded. This may help the Outlook product team evaluate the behavior and consider possible improvements in the future.

User's image

I hope this informations is helpful. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comment below. I'm very happy to help.

Note: Please follow the steps in the forum documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.