Mail Issue: Sent mail saving to Drafts folder

A growing issue in the Apple Support Discussions forum is centered around a problem where Mail (confirmed in Mac OS X 10.6.1) is saving sent messages to the Drafts folder. Some users suspect the inclusion of large attachments as causing the issue. Users are reporting that some of these messages are beings sent, while others are not--with no clear pattern as to which is which, causing users to have to check each message.

ASD forum poster, "DAVIDUGLY" started the thread:

Ever since updating to OSX10.6, duplicates of my sent mail will appear and stay in my DRAFTS folder. I double checked and there are no open windows/in progress emails opened ... just the files in the drafts folder.
Very odd.

A comprehensive solution has yet to be found for this issue, however ASD user "2daloo" posted this possible workaround:

Same problem, after not finding a solution online, I called Apple Tech Support. Their suggestion was to change one of the settings in my Mail - Preferences. I did, and it seems to have currently solved the issue.

Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced >

then where is says "keep copies of messages for offline viewing:" Select > Only messages I've read. You will need to do that for each account you're having this issue with. Hope this works for you!

Other solutions include rebuilding your account mailbox (Mail menu bar > Mailbox > Rebuild) or deleting the "com.apple.mail.plist" file (Users > username > Library > Preferences). Personally I have encountered this issue very intermittently, though not at a rate that has caused me to want to troubleshoot it. When the problem does occur, I just delete the copy in the Drafts folder (after checking to be sure the original message was sent), and the issue seems to go away. I will keep an eye on this thread and update this article if/when the issue is solved.

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