My mouse quickly races to my email outbox and I anxiously try to stop the immediate send function of my email server, only to find that it’s too late. My hand slaps my forehead as I realize I just hit send, too soon. The moment you hit send is either a nice ‘check that one off my list’ feeling, or that dreaded, OMG! Can I stop that from being sent before he or she reads it (without the forgotten attachment or small change)!?

Who has had that feeling of wanting to take back an email? We’ve all been there.

Luckily, there are handy functions within certain email programs to allow you to adjust send/receive options.

In Outlook, the recall feature can delete UNREAD copies of an email and replace with a new message (if the reader hasn’t yet read the message). There’s more to it since it depends on whether the user has email on their phone, or whether their email was open on their computer at the time the email was sent. That’s too much information and more about that would be BORING.

Here are some helpful tips:

Recall (Outlook)

Sent Items
Open Sent email
Actions
Recall this message
Delete unread copies or;
Delete unread copies and replace with a new message
Send/receive

Your initial email will be replaced with the corrected email and you can choose to be notified of the success of your attempt.

Set your email outbox preferences to NOT auto-send. This may seem like overkill, but trust me, it works. It gives you that extra time to go back into an email and change something if need be before it really leaves your outbox for good. In Outlook, follow these steps:

Delayed Sending (Outlook)

File
Options
Advanced
Send and receive
UNCHECK the box send immediately when connected
Click send and receive
Customize additional preferences to your liking

Now, you’ll have to remember to hit Send/Receive for emails to leave your outbox. Otherwise, they will sit there, unsent – which, at times, could be worse than hitting send prematurely. Eeekkk!

Undo Send (Gmail)
In email programs like Gmail, click on the cog icon to access settings.

Undo Send
Check Enable Undo Send
Send cancellation period (five – 30 seconds)

Hope this helps!