# Apple Mail won't delete a draft



## spitty27 (Oct 31, 2007)

im running leopard and its showing 1 draft that never got sent (that i wrote when i was on tiger). whenever i hit delete on the message, it turns grey but doesnt actually remove itself and i still have the little 1 badge to the right of the draft mailbox on the left. i went into my ~/Library/Mail/email account/Drafts/Mailbox and deleted the message but its still showing in Mail and its driving me insane. Does anyone know how to get this damn thing to disappear? ive repaired permissions but im just lost right now.

please help!


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## Credence (Nov 5, 2007)

I had the same problem tonight.  I can't get rid of this message in drafts.  Any ideas?  Thanks.


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## xero (Nov 5, 2007)

we can try one of two things here. first the easy way... try rebuilding your mailbox by selecting the mailbox on the left and then rebuild from the mailbox menu. 

if that doesn't work, you can always try:
/usr/bin/sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index vacuum

but make sure you have a backup of your mail folder first. you can drag it out to the root level of the hard drive or set it on the desktop and it should make a copy of it if you hold the option key down while dragging.


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## Credence (Nov 5, 2007)

Okay that was easy.  I've never seen the rebuild before.  Thanks for your help.


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## conventionalear (Nov 10, 2007)

tried both rebuild and terminal commands, and still have a "1" by my "Drafts" mailbox.  select it and nothing appears - it's "invisible".  it's always been "invisible".  at one point, there were two "invisible" drafts in my drafts folder.  now there is just the one.  *and* i can't get rid of it.  herupu purizu (help please).  thanks.


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## RMike53 (Dec 17, 2007)

I have the same problem. One draft message, that is empty when opened, will not go away. HELP!


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## Giaguara (Dec 17, 2007)

Another way to get rid of that message is to log in to your mail services webmail, and delete it from there.


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## RMike53 (Dec 17, 2007)

Went there (Comcast.net) , and it doesn't show there.


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## conventionalear (Dec 17, 2007)

It's gone!!!! I fixed this invisible draft problem when I realized that I've opened mail on several computers on which I've set up Mail.  On one of them, I actually found a non-invisible draft and deleted it.  That is what fixed it on the computer(s) where I couldn't get rid of it.


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## spitty27 (Dec 18, 2007)

ha! for some reason the only notification for replies i got was this last one by conventionalear but i read your post xero, and it worked! thanks so much. i too had never seen a rebuild of a mailbox. odd. little 1 is gone...yay


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## woswald404 (Jan 9, 2008)

I had same problem. A quick fix that worked for me was to delete all the recipient addresses from the to: space, put my email address in there, and hit send. It sent the "draft" email, and the number was corrected.


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## RMike53 (Jan 10, 2008)

I just rebuilt that mailbox and the draft message disappeared. Thought I had tried that before, but apparently not. THANKS.


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## allik (May 3, 2010)

i created an email with a long email list... the email won't send using the selected server.

i cant pick another server or cancel the email bc its out of view of the screen.  the email isnt saved in drafts so i cant delete it.  i want to delete it, help!


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