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Drafts let you start an email now and finish it later without creating a message or changing a thread. Recipients, subject, and body can remain empty until send time. Every draft belongs to one inbox and appears in its Drafts folder.

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Use drafts in the Inkbox Console

Open an identity’s mailbox and choose Compose, Reply, or Forward. The composer creates a draft after your first meaningful edit and autosaves later changes. Its save indicator shows when changes are saving or saved. You can then:
  • Close the composer and reopen the draft from Drafts.
  • Add or remove attachments without re-uploading attachments already saved.
  • Discard the draft to delete it permanently.
  • Send only after the latest local changes are saved.
A blank composer that was never edited closes without creating a draft. If a save fails, the Console keeps your local text and files so you can retry or discard those changes. If a draft contains rich HTML that the Console editor cannot safely represent, the Console opens it read-only. You cannot change its recipients, subject or body, open-tracking setting, or attachments there, but you can send the saved draft unchanged.

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Use drafts over REST

The REST lifecycle is create, update with the returned generation, then send or delete that exact generation.
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PATCH preserves omitted fields. Send null to clear a nullable field. Keep the latest returned generation with your local state; attachments also use and advance it. For replies, create/update requests use in_reply_to_message_id, while draft detail responses return the resolved value as in_reply_to. See the Drafts REST reference for all fields, attachments, forwarding, pagination, and response objects.

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Handle revision conflicts

Every saved revision has a generation. If another browser, API client, or mail app changes the draft first, your mutation returns 409 with detail.error: "draft_generation_conflict". Do not overwrite the newer revision silently. Reload it and compare changes. If you need to preserve both versions, duplicate the current server revision, then apply your local edits to the new draft. The duplicate has a new draft ID, generation 1, and a fresh Message-ID.

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Handle sends in progress

draft_send_in_progress means delivery work has already started for that exact revision. Keep the draft read-only, honor the Retry-After response header, and wait or poll using the same draft ID and generation. Do not submit another send. If the send is rejected before delivery is attempted, the draft returns to an editable state at the same generation. Fix the reported issue and send again. Successful sends return a normal Message and remove the source draft.

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Handle uncertain delivery

Rarely, Inkbox cannot confirm whether a send was accepted. The draft then reports send_state: "uncertain" and detail.error: "draft_delivery_uncertain". The draft remains readable and deletable, but it cannot be edited or sent. Do not retry automatically because the recipient may already have received it. Choose one of these explicit actions:
  • Delete the draft if you determine that no follow-up is needed.
  • Duplicate it to create an editable draft with a fresh Message-ID, review the content and recipient history, then decide whether to send the copy.

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Signatures on drafts

Drafts store the content you compose without automatically inserting a signature. At send time, Inkbox adds the mailbox’s current enabled custom signature, when available. If you change the signature while a draft is saved, the draft uses the new signature when sent. Do not manually add the same signature to the draft body.

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Storage behavior

Saved drafts count toward the inbox’s storage cap immediately, including their attachments. A duplicate consumes storage independently. Deleting a draft frees its storage. On successful send, the final sent message replaces the draft’s storage usage rather than leaving both charged indefinitely. Drafts stay separate from ordinary messages, threads, and search results until sent. Saving or editing a draft does not send mail or update a conversation.

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Use drafts in a mail app

The Inkbox Console, REST API, and connected mail apps share one Drafts folder. Changes made on one surface appear on the others. Because a saved email revision is immutable to mail apps, an edit made elsewhere can appear as one draft being removed and a replacement arriving. Mail apps save drafts through IMAP and send through SMTP. After the mail app receives a successful send response, it removes its own saved draft. Sending an unrelated email does not automatically delete a draft merely because its headers look similar. Mail apps can append drafts up to 10 MB. Final send preparation may need extra headroom, so a draft near that limit can save successfully but fail at send time. The draft remains intact if that happens. See Use a mail app (IMAP/SMTP) for setup.