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Have you ever inadvertently set your Email connection configuration to go to the Drafts folder of MS Outlook?

Then you processed your batch emailing, only to realise your mistake when you went to verify emails sent? What frustration knowing you now have to spend the next few hours opening Each email individually and click Send!


It happened to me and it took hours of work to send the 200 emails awaiting action in the Drafts folder of MS Outlook.

I tried dragging the emails from Drafts to Outbox folder so I could then click the Send/Receive button, but nothing happened. Only then did I realise that I had to open each 'Draft' email manually one by one, and then click SEND. I had around 200 emails in the Drafts folder awaiting Send. After much investigation, I finally figured out a way to resolve this problem and have a permanent solution which was fast and accurate. MS Outlook allows you to save many emails into the Drafts folder. However, there is no standard functionality that exists to be able to send those emails automatically in bulk.


What Can You Do?


Create a 'SEND DRAFT EMAILS' button.

This can be achieved by copying and pasting the VBA program code below into a Outlook macro and assigning the macro to an Outlook Quick Access Toolbar button. So here is what you do, step-by-step.

  1. Press [ALT + F11] to access the shortcut for the Visual Basic (VBA) editor interface.

  2. If you see just the VBA Project name in bold on the Left Hand pane, then right click on the project name, and select Insert and in the fly-out menu, select Module OR

  3. If you see a menu item 'Modules' under the Project name, you can alternatively right click on Module and on the drop down menu, select Insert and in the fly out menu, click on Moduleas in this image below) which will open a new code screen on the right window pane. Either of #2 or #3 is suitable for creating a blank Module in the right hand pane.


  4. Now highlight the text, then right click and select copy to copy all the code (beginning with Sub SendAllDraftEmails() to End Sub) from the yellow window below.

  5. Now paste the copied code into the white background VB code window in MS Outlook, then click the SAVE button.

  6. Finally, click menu File / Close and Return to Microsoft Outlook



The above screen shows you how your program code (white) window will look after you pasted a copy of the code from the yellow window. (The above is a MS Outlook 2010 window). It is important to note that the code will error if any address of the Draft is left blank. It MUST contain an email address in either of TO, CC or BCC to avoid errors.

Highlight the project name at the top (in bold) in the left-hand pane and then change the name of the project in the Properties window below in the left hand pane - see image below


We now have to assign a button to this macro on to the Quick Access Toolbar in Outlook.

  • Go to menu File--> Options--> Quick Access Toolbar tab.

  • Now follow the steps shown in the picture below to add the new macro to Quick Access Toolbar.
    1. In the drop down Choose command from:, select Macros

    2. In the box below, select the SendAllDraftEmails and click Add..

    3. SendAllDraftEmails code item will move to the righthand window and will be assigned a default icon on the Toolbar.



    4. To change the default icon assigned to the macro, highlight the macro SendAllDraftEmails in the right hand window and then click on the Modify.. button. This will open a screen displaying many icons.


    5. Select any preferred icon and then click OK to close that screen and 'lock-in' that icon to display on the Quick Access toolbar.


    6. Once you have closed the Modify Button screen, click OK to exit the Quick Access Toolbar configuration screen. Having exited, you will now see the Quick Access Toolbar with a new button, as indicated by the red arrow in this image below.

  • Note:
    If you have more than one email account in Outlook    , then the 'DRAFTS' folder is taken to be the DRAFTS folder for the default E-mail/Data Files account. Both the tabs must show the same default. If you change the default, it is better to close MS Outlook and reopen to ensure the default account is now selected in memory. You can change your default to process emails in a different DRAFTS email folder (select FILE menu/Info/Account Settings and when the email account listing window opens, highlight the email account and click Set as Default


  • Now click the Macro button in the Quick Access Toolbar to commence processing/sending emails.



You will get the following message on-screen if no Draft emails are found; else the message will be 'All Draft Emails Sent'.


Tip:

If you want to exclude some of the emails in the Drafts folder from sending at this time, make a subfolder in Drafts like 'On Hold'. Then drag the emails you don't want to send into this subfolder. They will not get sent and when you are ready, just drag them back into the Drafts folder, then click your macro 'SendAllDraftEmails' run button.

Note:

As stated earlier in this article, if you have more than one email account set up in MS Outlook (see FILE/INFO/ACCOUNT SETTINGS), then the 'SendAllDraftEmails' button will only send the emails from the Drafts folder of the Email/Data Files account set as default.



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