The current recovery feature is quite different from the old recovery feature from a few years ago.
- The old version restored all temporary draft versions after they had been deleted (such as when the draft was finally sent as a message or it was deleted).
- When you moved messages between folders the messages were copied then the original was permanently deleted. So many many messages were typically recovered if you moved messages between folders.
- The retrieved messages (and drafts) were placed in a newly created folder tree which was only available for one week.
- If you had saved (or auto-saved) 15 versions of a draft message, all 15 would be recovered.
- That's how I remember it. My memory isn't perfect, but this is pretty close to how it worked.
- The current version restores drafts and messages to the folders they were in when they were permanently deleted.
- Only permanently deleted messages are recovered, so moving messages no longer causes a backup copy to be available. Messages deleted from the Trash folder are "permanently discarded" and can be recovered.
- The only draft messages which can be recovered are those which were "permanently discarded" by a purposeful Discard Draft action. The discarded draft is not placed in Trash (since it is permanently discarded), so it can be recovered.
- Only the draft versions you purposely discarded can be recovered. For example, after you send a message the saved drafts are automatically discarded and can't be recovered.
- New features allow you to restore contacts, calendar events, and notes. You have a choice to undo all changes or recover discarded items.
- The new system allows you to choose how far back to recover, with selections in steps from 10 minutes to 1 week. The old system always recovered all available items, which recovered at least one week and in some cases up to 2 weeks of items, which produced a huge set of temporarily available messages you had to look through to find the messages you wanted to recover.
So you should copy (not cut) important sections from a draft to a destination. After the copy has been pasted, you can then delete that portion of the draft.
Bill