Trying to understand Outlook.com draft email tabs

As I create new draft emails, Outlook on the web will create little “tabs” on the bottom right of the window, with a pencil icon and the subject of the email. What does Microsoft call these? Also, they disappear when I refresh the page, and will disappear if I leave my computer overnight (presumably when the laptop goes into sleep mode it triggers a refresh on wake?). I’m trying to understand if there is a way to have them not disappear. I’ve had a few users ask me about this since we transitioned from Google. Evidently Google had a similar “bottom tab” UI that was permanent and these users liked it. Now, after the refresh, when I go into the Drafts folder and click on and edit the various drafts (that previously had tabs), Outlook does not create new tabs for them. It seems like it only creates these little tabs for brand new drafts. I’d like to understand this logic. Finally, I have had people ask if there is a way to completely disable these tabs; they prefer to just navigate to the Drafts folder and would rather not see the tabs.

Conversation 2 comments

  • yoshi

    Premium Member
    14 January, 2022 - 8:20 am

    <p>You’re trying to understand logic in a Microsoft product. That usually leads to madness :)</p><p><br></p><p>For real though – I just tried what you mentioned with the tabs. For me, in both Gmail and Outlook.com the tabs went away after a refresh. They were saved in the Drafts folder though on both.</p><p><br></p><p>I will say I have tried many times to switch from Gmail to Outlook.com and I always end up back on Gmail. There are many strange quirks and scaling issues with Outlook.com. And their Contacts section is atrocious. Sorry I am not of more help.</p>

  • phil_adcock

    15 January, 2022 - 6:53 pm

    <p>Yeah I when I started using e-mail with my own domain. I started out using O365 (Business Essentials) About 9 months in I transitioned over to Gsuite…now workspace and have to say I by far prefer it. </p>

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