Cognitive pre-loading of referenced content in electronic mail (e-mail) messages includes determining, using computer hardware, metadata for an electronic message directed to a user, detecting, using the computer hardware, a universal resource locator (URL) within a body portion of the electronic message, determining, using the computer hardware, a content type for the URL, and performing, using the computer hardware, natural language processing on the electronic message to determine an action importance corresponding to the URL. At least a portion of content specified by the URL can be pre-fetched from a data processing system based on the metadata, the content type of the URL, and the action importance. The electronic message and at least a portion of the content can be provided to a client device of the user.