23rd August 2002

Many times people forget that Outlook/Outlook Express has more to it then just the "New Message" button. A feature that I want to look at today is the "Drafts" folder. I have spoken with a lot of people who think that they need to finish a message or they will lose it; that's just not true! You can save a message for later in Outlook/Outlook Express by closing the message and clicking "Yes" when asked if you want to save the message. If you do this, you will then see that message in your Drafts folder and you can finish that e-mail later. But there are also many other ways to use your Drafts folder than just unfinished e-mails! Newer versions of these e-mail clients let you save frequently-used phrases in a quick to apply area but what if you have a repetitive response that is longer then a sentence? Just write your paragraph-long response and then save it to the Drafts folder. Now, when you have to respond to someone with that paragraph, you just have to open the draft message and do a copy-and-paste into a blank message. No more having to waste time writing repetitive responses!

It has also been brought to our attention that the Drafts folder works great for Lockergnome newsletters! Occasionally a Web site we review exceeds its bandwidth, and that makes the download hard to pick up. If you just are waiting for a few different Web sites to come back online, why not copy the review and URL into a draft message? Now you don't have to save the whole newsletter in your Inbox. Then, just check the Web sites listed in your draft message from time to time to see if they come back online. (By the way, the subject of this tip is brought to you by Lockergnomie Alvin Broughton. Thanks, Alvin!)