June 24, 2015
Last week I discussed the Resend This Message command. Well, another command under that same Actions menu in a sent item is the Recall This Message command. It attempts to erase a message that you have sent to others, so they cannot read it. It’s been in Outlook for decades.
Finally, Gmail has rolled out a similar feature call Undo Send.
The thing you need to realize about both of these system is this: there is no guarantee it will work!
For example, if your recipient’s mailbox is on a different server than you, in the Outlook case it probably will not work. And in Gmail, if too much time passes it won’t work.
How this Works
The undo feature works differently across the two systems. In Gmail, the feature operates by delaying the actual sending of all your mail by a user-settable number of minutes. That way, if you change your mind before that time threshold passes, you can prevent it from sending. Of course, this setting slows down all your mail.
In Outlook, Recall This Message is different. The message is always sent immediately, and it will be in the recipient’s mailbox, but it will then get pulled out again if you recall it before they read it. However, that usually only works if the recipient’s mailbox is on the same Exchange system as yours (i.e. inside the same company). If not, what happens instead is the recipient receives a system-generated email that states the sender is attempting to recall the message (but the original incorrect message remains in the recipients mailbox). That can either be useful or embarrassing, depending on circumstances. Better, probably, if you know your recipient is not on your server, is for you to send your own message stating that the original one was incorrect. That way you can add a bit of explanation.
Delaying All Mail in Outlook
By the way, there is a way in Outlook to enable delayed sending of all outgoing mail, just like the new Gmail feature. Like Outlook’s Recall feature, it also has been available for decades, and it uses the Rules feature of Outlook and is written up here.
Michael
The delayed send is one of the coolest things I have done with Outlook. It has saved me many times. Especially when it comes to forgetting attachments.
In the linked explanation they talk about using certain key words to bypass the delay. I use 4 consecutive dots in the subject line. Not as obtrusive as words with brackets. Another suggestion in the comments of the linked item is to use 3 spaces. Even less obtrusive than my 4 dots.
As usual, a great post Michael!
This is Michael. A vendor contacted us in response to this post and said they have a product that generalizes the unsend solution. We haven’t looked at it, but wanted to put the link here in case it helps anyone. Let us know how it goes if you test it out, okay?
The product link is: http://unSend.it
Michael