It’s happened to everyone. You’re typing out an email, and without thought, review, or editing, you press send. Once you press that button, you realize that you weren’t ready, that you said something wrong, or even that you sent the message to the wrong person. 

You don’t want this email out there in the world or want the recipient to read it. Frankly, you want a do-over. Unfortunately, it feels like there’s no way to remedy the issue unless you can somehow unsend that email. 

Do you want to hear the good news?

You can.

After sending, you can unsend an email on Microsoft Outlook, at least for a while. If you have the feature turned on, you can make that embarrassing, poorly written, or mistakenly sent email disappear, as long as you do it within the set time frame. 

Let’s discuss more how.

Unsending Emails in Outlook

Outlook will also hold sent emails for a short period of time before delivery. This allows you to unsend emails you don’t want to send. You’ll need to turn the “unsend email” feature on before you can use it manually. 

To turn the “unsend email” feature on in Outlook, click on the settings icon. Choose “View all Outlook Settings,” and then choose “Mail.” From there, click “Compose and reply,” then you will head to “undo send,” and choose between 0-10 seconds. 

Using the Unsend Feature in Outlook

Once the feature is turned on, you can unsend emails within your chosen timeframe. When you have pressed “send” on an email, Outlook has a “sending” box at the bottom of the window. This box remains for the time you have chosen for Outlook to hold your emails. 

In the “sending” box, there will be an “undo” box. After clicking “undo,” the email will stop sending and open in your drafts folder. 

Recalling Emails in Outlook

Another feature that Outlook has is the recall feature. This allows you to recall or delete an email that has already been delivered to the recipient and is in their inbox. This feature only works when you have the same Microsoft Exchange server as the recipient or if the recipient also has a Microsoft 365 account. 

To use this feature, you will first check your outbox to see if the message is still there. If it is there, it has not been delivered yet, and you can simply drag it to your “drafts” folder or delete it.

However, if it is no longer in the outbox and has been delivered, you will find it in your “sent” folder. Double click on the message, and it will open in a new window. Then, press on “messages,” “move,” “actions,” and finally choose “recall this message.”

After choosing to recall the message, you will be given two more options; “delete unread copies of this message” or “delete unread copies and replace with new message.” Pick the option you prefer. If you have chosen to replace it with a new message, your old message will open back up so you can edit and resend it. 

Unsending Emails with Other Providers

If you use another email provider, you may not have the option to unsend your emails. You may want to consider switching your email provider to Outlook so that you have the option available if you need it. 

Contact us at MSG to discuss how we can assist your business in enjoying the benefits of Outlook and Microsoft Office 365. We will manage your Exchange services and ensure that your business can easily synchronize across platforms and devices.