How To Recover Deleted Draft Emails in Gmail
If you are like me and like to keep important information and ideas in Gmail drafts for future reference, then I am sure your draft folder will have a bunch of important drafts. And accidentally deleting any of these drafts can be quite a problem as discarded drafts don’t go into the trash folder, unlike deleted emails.
Although it is very difficult to recover a deleted draft in Gmail, but there is still hope if circumstances permit. In this post, I am going to share 2 ways to recover deleted drafts in Gmail.
Use the Undo button
This is the simplest solution but you have like 10 seconds after deleting a draft to use this feature to recover it. When you discard a draft in Gmail, you will get a small popup at the bottom left corner of the email with an “Undo” button. Just click on this “Undo” button and the draft will be immediately recovered.
However, do keep in mind that popup will only stay available for about 10 seconds and will be removed if you move to a different section. So you must act during this time period. Once the pop up disappears, there is no other way to bring it back to undo.
Recover draft on your phone
It isn’t uncommon these days that we are logged-in to our Gmail account from both our desktop and smartphone. If you have deleted the email on your desktop, then you may still be able to recover it from your phone if you act fast enough. The Gmail mobile app is updated periodically, so even if you delete the draft on your PC; it will still take a bit of time to sync these changes on your phone. Here is what you need to do:
Immediately remove internet access to your phone so it would not be able to sync the changes. Afterward, open the Gmail app and it will load data from the cache including the draft if it has not been already synced. Just copy the contents and save them somewhere safe. You can also create a new draft with the same content and let it sync by enabling the internet connection.
Ending words
I know that these solutions aren’t very reliable, especially if a long period of time has passed before learning about these solutions. Unfortunately, there is no official way to recover discarded drafts once they are gone, so these solutions are your last hope.
This is an interesting blog . A lot of information is filled in this blog.Thank you for sharing. Great work and keep it up.
I hate Gmail at times. When you are typing out a long email and lose connection to the wifi. It doesn’t save a draft or if it does it is normally only a few sentences. Hate it…. Can it be recovered?
This happened to me and I was cursing a blue streak as I had spent a couple of hours drafting the message. Then I thought of something. I looked in my browser history and there it was!
When I first lost a Gmail message, I vowed to draft my long messages in MS Word where I can copy and paste them in my Gmail messages. If the message is short, I often copy it to the clipboard or paste it to the dropdown Notepad that is usually open. The undo trick does not always work. A weakness in my system is my advancing age. As the distance between 85 and 90 gets shorter, the problem increases. Why do drafts disappear with no explanation? Shouldn’t it be a simple fix?
You are a genius – I quickly put my phone on flight mode and the deleted draft was still there. Thank you so much!
Oh man! As I was reading this and got to the part “Recover draft on your phone”, I immediately went to my phone and disconnected wifi and cell data. Then, I opened the gmail app and went to Drafts – and sure enough… there it was!!! Saved my but majorly. Thank you so much!!!
Draft emails by deleted so please recover.
oh my goodness you are genius!!
I just did the wifi offline phone option and it worked!
My cat deleted my draft that I had spent over an hour researching and typing out.
OMG I am eternally grateful, thank you!
had 30 drafts for repetitive emails and they all dissapeared, not in trash, not sent, just gone as are all those in my trash folder. Gmail
I lost very sensitive login and passwords I saved in my mail draft., Now I can’t recover it.. plz draft recovery should be fixed.
I am running into the issue of having the CONTENT characters of my draft Gmail messaged cleared out as I am typing, perhaps leaving only the last 3 or so characters I typed. The draft email entity structure is still there, but my laboriously-typed message is gone. This has happened several times and is very frustrating.
I figure my fingers must be accidently hitting some key combination which is causing this to happen. But unlike when using WORD, I can’t seem to find a way to undo such key strokes.
Any suggestions on how to find/do such an undo?
Also, if anyone knows what causes such complete dissappearances of all characters in a multi-paragraph message, I would be happy to know so I can be aware of what I need to be more careful about in future! (I am using a PC, if that makes any difference.)
Thanks for any help.
I have in the incognito window chrome, typed a draft, which constantly showing saved, then when you close and re-open, all my notes are disappeared!!!
Wasted my half day work
When you know the title (or at least some part of it) of the message you may try to search for it in the search bar. In my case the deleted draft could be restored in this way.
No one should have to “recover” a “draft” etc. in gmail. IT IS PURE ARROGANCE ON THE PART OF GOOGLE/GMAIL TO NOT SEND DISCARDED DRAFTS TO THE TRASH “FOLDER” PERIOD. ABSOLUTE ARROGANCE. THEY WERE TOLD ABOUT IT 20 YEARS AGO. GOOGLE IS POLITICALLY FAR LEFT. THEY DO NOT LISTEN. THAT’S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.
Agree (in part) with the previous poster. The thing is: why, what’s the reason Google Gmail doesn’t keep discarded draft in the Trash folder, what’s the rationale behind not keeping discarded draft in trash?
I tried the internet/date disconnection (fly mode) and didn’t work. I went to the history folder and didn’t bring it back either. If anyone ever finds a solution for this Google Gmail flaw, please report/post it here. Thanks in advance. MA
Help!!
I can’t find my draft. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s gone. gone. gone!
The offline restore from phone is a smart idea. Thank you!