Tip 986: Link to a Draft Message

Foggy posed a question in our Outlook Forums, asking about linking to a message in drafts. While it is possible to link to Outlook messages, it's less useful to link to a draft, as the draft disappears once it is sent, rendering the link dead.

Foggy came up with this method for easy access to message he's working on thorough out the day.

In Outlook 2007 or 2010 and Windows 7 (or 8):

1. Open the window to compose a new email (or open a previously saved draft).
2. Click the Office Button / File tab and click Save As.
3. Choose to save in "Outlook Message Format" to the location of your choice.
4. Drag the saved message to the Taskbar to the Outlook icon where it will say "pin to Outlook."

That's all you need to do The draft is now pinned to the Outlook jump menu. Unlike a normal Outlook draft message, this draft doesn't "disappear" once sent, because it's not saved in the Drafts folder, it's saved to the Windows file system. (Autosave still works, it just doesn't save it to drafts.)

Outlook doesn't need to be open to access the pinned shortcut, although it will open once you click on the shortcut in the jump list.

You can use this method to pin templates and other Outlook forms to Outlook.

Published May 16, 2012. Last updated on January 22, 2015.