Approve drafts before they send · MachineMail Docs

Open Your Drafts

An agent can save a reply as a draft instead of sending it. A person then reads it in the dashboard and decides: send it, fix it first, or throw it away. This guide covers the person’s side.

The agent’s side is in Drafts: how an agent creates drafts, and how to give it a key that can draft but not send.

Open Your Drafts

Open machinemail.dev/app/drafts, or choose Drafts in the sidebar. Every unsent draft in the organization is listed on the left. Select one to read it on the right.

A thread with an unsent reply also shows a Draft reply bar above its messages. Choose Review in Drafts to jump to it.

Each draft has a status:

Status Meaning
Draft Waiting for a person. It never sends on its own.
Scheduled · sends in The agent set a send time. It goes out automatically at that time.
Sending soon Its send time has passed and it is still queued to send automatically.
Sending It is going out now.
Send failed The scheduled send failed. It is not retried automatically.

Read the Draft

The header shows From (the inbox), To, Cc and Bcc, Sends for a scheduled draft, and when it was drafted or last edited.

A reply draft quotes the message it answers. Choose Open thread to read the whole conversation first.

Edit It If Needed

  1. Choose Edit.
  2. Change To, Cc, Subject or the Body. You can attach files or remove attachments. Bcc is kept as it is.
  3. Choose Save, or press ⌘↵ (Ctrl+↵ on Windows and Linux).

To stop editing, choose Cancel or press Esc. If you made changes, the dashboard asks Discard your changes? Choose Keep editing or Discard changes.

A scheduled draft keeps its send time while you edit. The editor shows how long is left before it sends automatically. Save before then.

Send It

  1. Choose Send now.
  2. Check the recipients in the Send draft now dialog.
  3. Choose Send now again.

A scheduled draft goes out at once instead of at its scheduled time. Once sent, the draft leaves the list and becomes a normal message in its thread.

Send now is turned off while the draft has no recipients.

Undo a Send

When Undo send is on, a send from the dashboard waits 5 seconds before it goes out. While it waits, the bar at the bottom shows a countdown and an Undo button. Choose Undo or press Z to take the send back. The draft stays as it was.

Undo send is on for new organizations. To change it, open Settings → Organization and use the Undo send switch. It applies to everyone in the organization, and only to sends from the dashboard. After the 5 seconds, sent mail can’t be recalled.

Retry a Failed Send

A scheduled send can fail. The draft then shows Send failed and the note “The scheduled send failed and is not retried automatically.”

  1. Fix what is wrong, for example a recipient address, with Edit.
  2. Choose Retry send.
  3. Confirm in the Retry sending this draft dialog with Retry send.

Delete a Draft

  1. Choose Delete.
  2. Type DELETE and choose Delete draft.

The draft is deleted without being sent. A scheduled send is cancelled. The agent is not told.

Not in the Dashboard

The dashboard can’t write a new draft or set a send time. Agents create drafts with the API or the MCP create_draft tool. The dashboard reviews, edits, sends and deletes them.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Fix
A draft sent before anyone reviewed it The agent set a send time, and a draft with a send time goes out on its own. Ask the agent to leave send_at empty. See Drafts.
Send now is greyed out The draft has no recipients, or it is already sending. Add a recipient with Edit.
“That draft no longer exists” Someone sent or deleted it, or it went out on schedule, while you had it open.
Undo never appears Undo send is off for the organization. Turn it on in Settings → Organization.