Correct. But underrated app.
I like that explanation claran! Makes good sense.
For “generic messaging” — which app are you using to send the message? Messages doesn’t support rich text at all, so you must be using something else—presumably something with formatting tools that allow you to specify text color and other items.
For composing rich emails, it’s best to use your favorite email program directly. You might be able to hack together something to grab a link to an image and send an HMTL email. But why go to all that trouble when you could just compose the email in a tool designed for that very purpose? If you want to start with Drafts, do that, but leave the image insertion and formatting until after you’ve sent the text to your mail app of choice.
More broadly, I’ll note that I don’t find Drafts all that useful for sending responses to people, in messages, email, or otherwise. Most of the time having the full context available—the messaging thread, the original email, etc.—makes it far easier to draft the reply.
I’ve tried Drafts several times and I’ve always just naturally gone back to Notes. I think it comes down to Notes being as easy (and fast) to use as Drafts. To get started with a note I open the app, Command-N on my keyboard and just start typing. Or I can long press the Notes app in the dock and choose new note. I don’t have to format anything if I don’t want to. And, I have the option to share out to Messages, Mail, a tweet, a text file or any number of other possibilities. And while I can (and usually do) just start with text as I would with Drafts, I also have the additional feature set which supports adding inline images, PDFs, links with rich previews, etc. Which can all be shared out with the note if I need to share it out.
Drafts seems to click for some people but I think there are a lot of people that want to make it work and it never quite does. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen posts from people who trying Drafts again for the nth time. I’ve just acknowledged that I’m one of the people that prefers Notes. And I’d emphasize that Notes is just as easy to get started with as Drafts. There’s nothing over-complicating the Notes workflow. If I’m being honest, adding Drafts to my workflow was an unnecessary step and adding an unnecessary app.
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More power to you. I love that we have as many good choices as we do. I was just trying to explain the appeal for those of us that really do use and rely on Drafts on a daily basis.
For me, I have far more need to manipulate text than I do to deal with images, rich text, or files. So for me, Draft’s customizable keyboard keys, scriptability, text-expander integration, etc. far outweigh the potential gains of using Notes.
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FYI, there have been a few other threads about this, like this one, so you might want to do a Search.
The spaciousness in Drafts makes editing in it superior when sending a Message. On the Mac the window for entering text is tiny and un-resizable, and on iOS it’s been too easy to send a multi-paragraph Message while still composing it. To be able to edit my text and Message from Drafts… it’s a beautiful thing.
Messages window vs Drafts:
Sadly for Agile Tortoise, I don’t need the additional features in the subscription, so, even though I was willing to pay for an upgrade to the app, I’ve remained as a user of the free version on Mac and iOS.
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Right. My little workaround for that is to put stuff on either Apple Notes or Drafts on the Mac, then cut and paste from either of those apps on the iPhone, into Cheatsheet.
I try to start everything in Drafts and I do keep a lot of things in there.
One thing I was able to do once was Workspaces, but haven’t been able to do again. I need to take some time and learn it again.
I just created a Shortcut (thanks to @MacSparky’s Field Guide!) that I can call from a Drafts action to append the draft content to one of my lists (“books”, “film”, etc.). You could make the shortcut take text input instead of a draft (and I’ll do this) but that’s one example of how you can quickly go from scratchpad draft to permanent storage with very little friction.
By the way, you don’t need to pay for Drafts to use it if you just want to write text. Only the advanced features require a subscription . I recently started using it in my Keyboard Maestro Macros for when my Mac wakes up in the morning and night for a simple reason:
- When you launch and quitting the app everyday, it doesn’t keep a document unless there is some text on it.
With Notes, you can automate creating a new note each time the app launches but even if the previous note has nothing on it another new note will be created.
No workaround needed with Drafts in the free version!
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By golly, you were right: nestled in the middle of my sharesheets on iOS 13 the option did present itself 
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I use iOs Messages and MacOs iMessages. Both allow me to copy/paste images, which I do often. It would indeed be helpful to be able to start a message in Drafts if I could add my image(s) there but that does not seem to be possible.
Sometimes I send the same email to multiple people with a few personalized edits. It would be helpful to have the “template email” in Drafts and then customize it for each person after I send it to my email editor but before sending it. But that is not practical if I cannot include rich text and images in Drafts.
Drafts has been evolving ever since Drafts 5 dropped last year. The possibility of keeping a lot more in Drafts is there thanks to the workspace feature. But it still retains the extensible scratchpad that it always has been.
There are some things that have been pointed out in this thread that Drafts can assist with: writing longer messages in Messages is better with Drafts because it allows you to compose in a larger area (and it also helps that you get to take more time to compose your thoughts). Email is the same way. I’m even composing all of this in Drafts rather than the small web view in the forums.
I use Drafts for a lot – it’s my single point of capture, my digital journal, my meeting minutes generator, and my text editor. With all of these, it requires integration with other apps, with the exception of the single point of capture. My journal gets written in Drafts and gets ultimately stored in DEVONthink. My meeting minutes are taken, but then sent through Shortcuts to get turned into a PDF. My text editor remains in Drafts, but requires deep integration with WordPress. When I write for MacStories, I have to integrate with Working Copy to share the draft for collaborative editing.
My point to all of this: I’d encourage anyone to fit Drafts into their workflow. Make it as prominent on iOS/iPadOS/macOS as you can. Put it on your Apple Watch face, and use it there. See how it can help and augment your experience. And you can do all of this with the free version to start. Over time, you might find that you need more of the power-user features that come with the Pro subscription, or even replace apps for you.
Use Drafts a little. Use Drafts a lot. But whatever you do: make sure you just use Drafts.
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That’s right. Messages itself doesn’t support rich text (no bold/italic/underline or other styles). But it does allow you to send images and mail. I’d suggest that if you want to use Drafts for this, you just add the images after you send the text to Messages.
There are betting options for this if you’re on MacOS. TextExpander, for example. On iOS, you could chain some things together to compose your email in Markdown, and then send it to your email client as rich text. But you’d still have to add the images after the fact. And I suspect there are other tools better suited for your purposes than Drafts.
Overall, it sounds like you’re looking for Drafts to be something it’s not. It’s ok if Drafts isn’t for you.
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One thing Drafts has become for me is the place I write my original emails. I have a few different domains with work which are treated as aliases. The problem is that Mail on iOS (which is my preferred Mail app) only allows one sig per account. I setup actions for each alias so the signature matches the alias used to send the message.
I also use Drafts to send certain tweets. I have actions with certain hashtags attached already, so it makes it easier fo rme to complain about another Mets loss. Not quite something I can’t live without, but nice to have. Also works for events, conferences, etc.
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Can I just say I love reading about you guys nerving out on this stuff. That is why we make the show.
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I’ve watched some of your screencasts, so I know that I’m not utilizing it to it’s full potential. I love (up until the recent discovery of voice control) how long the dictation lasts.
Mostly I use it to track and draft various posts to my instagram channel ( @littletikeshacks [^1] ). Depending on what theme I am posting about, I like to go to previous drafts to resurrect theme-specific hash tags and such.
[^1]: One of several accounts.
Brilliant HellsKitchenDweller! I hadn’t ever thought of using Drafts for the sig s! 
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Honestly, for me, I tried using Drafts as a note taking app and didn’t find it particularly useful in my workflow. And shortcuts has replaced quick capture in most instances.
However, drafts is superior as a watch app. There is no better way to input text on an Apple Watch than drafts. Drafts has managed to allow you to dictate text for an exceedingly long amount of time. I have not tested the limits, but I have heard elsewhere that it only stops when you stop it. I then use Drafts on iOS to send that text to whatever destinations.
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