Have you ever been typing an email and have it suddenly disappear? If so, you can often retrieve it by going to the DRAFTS mailbox in your email service.

Whether you get your email online through a browser or you use an email client like Microsoft Outlook, all email services have four basic mailboxes (or folders, if you will). There’s the Inbox, the Outbox, Sent and Drafts.

The Drafts folder is where emails go that you’ve started but not yet sent. This can be very helpful when an email does disappear. (Trust me, it happens to virtually all of us!) It’s also good because you can actually save an email as you write it. This is especially a good idea if you’re writing a very long email. As you finish a thought or a paragraph, simply hit the SAVE icon and your email will be saved in Drafts. This way, if something catastrophic does happen, you won’t lose the entire email.

How do you save an email as you write it? It’s the Microsoft Answer – it depends! In Microsoft Outlook, there’s an actual save icon and you just click it. It is then saved and you just keep writing. In Outlook.com online email, there’s a “Save Draft” option under the 3 dots at the top of a new email. In Gmail and Yahoo, however, there’s no Save icon or option. You simply X out of the email you are writing. It will be saved and sent to Drafts. You’ll need to go to Drafts to retrieve it and keep writing – which is extra steps – but it’s still a good idea. For Gmail and Yahoo, this procedure works the same with the phone apps as it does through the web on a computer.

On the iPhone, if you use the built-in mail app, if you X out of an email you are writing, the phone will ask you if you want to save it as a Draft or Discard it. On an Android, if you use the built-in mail app, there are three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner of the email you are composing. You touch those dots and on the menu which appears, there’s an option to Save in Drafts. (Or, if you just X out of the email, you’ll be asked to save in drafts or discard.)

In addition to you manually saving an email, most email software automatically saves your writing from time to time. However, this might not be frequent enough if you’re writing a long message.

Now that you’ve read this post, why not go to your email and check out the Drafts mailbox?