How to Find Draft Messages on LinkedIn

Ever spent ten minutes crafting the perfect LinkedIn message, only to get distracted and close the tab, convinced your brilliant words were lost forever? It's a frustratingly common scenario, but that half-finished message is likely safe and sound. This guide will show you exactly how to find your draft messages on LinkedIn, whether you're on a desktop or a mobile device, so you can pick up right where you left off.

What Exactly Are LinkedIn Draft Messages?

Before jumping into the step-by-step, let's quickly clarify what a LinkedIn draft is. As you type a message to a connection, LinkedIn automatically saves your progress in the background. If you navigate away, switch to another conversation, or close the app without sending, LinkedIn holds onto that text for you. It's essentially an auto-save feature designed to prevent you from losing your work.

This is incredibly useful for several reasons:

• Preventing Accidental Deletion: The most obvious benefit is saving your message from being erased by a sudden browser crash or an accidental click.
• Crafting Thoughtful Responses: It allows you to start a complex response, step away to gather your thoughts or find a link, and come back later to finish it without leaving the recipient on "read" for hours.
• Time Management: You can start drafting replies during a short break and finish them later when you have more time to dedicate to thoughtful communication.

The problem is, finding these saved drafts isn’t always intuitive. They don't appear in a big, flashing pop-up, they're tucked away in a specific filter within your inbox. Let's find them.

How to Find Draft Messages on LinkedIn (Desktop Version)

The LinkedIn desktop interface offers the most straightforward way to locate and manage your drafts. The key is knowing where to find the dedicated "Drafts" filter. If you've been searching manually through every conversation, this will be a welcome relief.

Follow these simple steps to find your unsent masterpieces:

Step 1: Navigate to Your Messaging Inbox

Log into your LinkedIn account on your preferred web browser. Once you're on the homepage, look at the top navigation bar. You'll see an icon that looks like a messaging bubble, labeled "Messaging." Click this icon to open your LinkedIn inbox.

Step 2: Locate the Inbox Filters

Your inbox will open, showing a list of your conversations on the left-hand panel. At the top of this list, just above your most recent message, you'll see a series of filter buttons. These typically include options like "All," "My Network," "Unread," "InMail," and, most importantly for us, "Drafts."

Step 3: Click the "Drafts" Filter

Click on the "Drafts" button. The conversation list on the left will immediately update, displaying only the conversations that contain a saved, unsent message from you. The platform neatly isolates these conversations so you don't have to hunt for them.

Step 4: Select and Edit Your Draft

From the filtered list, click on the conversation containing the draft you want to access. The main message window will open, and a label stating "This is a draft" will appear above the text composition box. Your previously written text will be sitting in the box, exactly as you left it. You can now edit, add to it, or simply hit "Send" to complete the conversation.

Once you send the message, the conversation will be removed from the "Drafts" filter, as it no longer contains an unsent draft. If you decide to delete the text, the draft status will also be removed.

How to Find Draft Messages on the LinkedIn Mobile App (iOS & Android)

Finding drafts on the go with the LinkedIn mobile app is just as simple, though the interface is slightly different. The process is nearly identical for both iPhone and Android users.

Here’s how to do it on your phone:

Step 1: Open the Mobile App and Go to Messaging

Launch the LinkedIn app on your smartphone. The "Messaging" icon is usually located in the top-right corner of the screen, represented by a speech bubble with three dots. Tap it to open your inbox.

Step 2: Find the "Drafts" Folder

When your inbox opens, you won't see filter buttons like you do on the desktop. Instead, the mobile app often treats drafts as a distinct folder. At the very top of your conversation list, you should see a dedicated row labeled "Drafts" with a number next to it indicating how many conversations contain an unsent draft.

Step 3: Tap on "Drafts" to View the List

Tap this "Drafts" row. The screen will switch to show you only the conversations with saved drafts. It’s a clean and efficient way to see everything you’ve started but haven't finished.

Step 4: Open the Conversation and Finish Your Message

Tap the conversation you want to continue. Just like on the desktop, the chat will open with your unsent message loaded into the text field. You'll see a small [Draft] label next to the text. You are now free to finish writing and send it off.

Troubleshooting: "I Still Can't Find My LinkedIn Draft!"

What if you’ve followed the steps and your draft message is nowhere to be found? It’s not common, but a few things could be happening. Here are the most likely reasons why a draft might not have saved.

1. The Message Was Too Short

LinkedIn’s auto-save feature might not trigger for very short snippets of text. If you only typed a word or two (e.g., "Hi," or "Thanks,") and then clicked away, the system might not have registered it as a draft worth saving. The feature is optimized for more substantial messages that would be a pain to lose.

2. You Manually Cleared the Text Box

The auto-save function works by saving what’s currently in the composition box. If you started typing, then highlighted everything and hit backspace or delete before navigating away, you essentially told LinkedIn that the box was empty. In this case, there was nothing to save, so no draft was created.

3. A Poor Connection or Quick Exit

Auto-save happens almost instantly, but it’s not magic. If you typed a message and immediately closed the browser tab or force-quit the app within a second, it's possible the save did not register with LinkedIn’s servers. Similarly, a spotty internet connection at the moment of typing could prevent the save from happening successfully.

4. You’re Looking in the Wrong Conversation

It sounds simple, but it happens. If you're managing dozens of conversations, especially in sales or community management, it’s easy to think you were replying to one person when you were actually typing in another thread. Double-check your other recent conversations in the "Drafts" filter - it might just be in a different chat.

Beyond Finding Drafts: Best Practices for LinkedIn Messaging

Now that you know how to find your drafts, you can start using them more intentionally as part of your social media strategy. This feature isn't just a safety net, it's a powerful tool for better communication.

• Compose Thoughtful Outreach: For important cold outreach or follow-up messages, use the draft feature to get your thoughts down. Step away, proofread it a few minutes later with fresh eyes, and only send it when you're confident it's clear, concise, and error-free.
• Prepare for Meetings: Before a call with a prospect or new connection, you can draft key talking points or questions directly in your LinkedIn message chain. This primes you for the conversation and gives you easy-to-paste text if a relevant topic comes up.
• Keep Your Inbox Clean: Get into the habit of reviewing your "Drafts" folder once a week. This helps you identify messages you forgot to send and delete old, irrelevant drafts that are just cluttering up your inbox. An unsent happy birthday message from three weeks ago probably doesn't need to stay.
• For Mission-Critical Messages, Use a Separate Doc: While the LinkedIn draft feature is reliable, for something truly vital like a proposal, job application, or critical client update, it's always safest to write it in an external document (like Google Docs or a notes app) first. This creates a permanent backup and separates the writing process from the sending process, reducing the chance of an accidental "send."

Final Thoughts

Losing a well-crafted LinkedIn message is a needless frustration. By simply using the "Drafts" filter in your inbox, you can quickly find, finish, and send any message you've started on both desktop and mobile. Hopefully, this guide removes that small point of friction from your professional networking and community management workflow.

Managing direct messages and comments across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms can easily become a full-time job in itself. For our team, we found that jumping between native apps led to missed messages and slowed-down responses. That's why we built our engagement features in Postbase to collect every social media DM and comment into a single, unified inbox, making it far easier to stay responsive and organized without the chaos.