Hi Guys!!!
Over the weekend, I mistakenly sent an email to the wrong address and I started panicking (this incident is a common occurrence for most of us). I didn’t know how to undo the sent message. I was able to research on it and I realized Gmail only allows you to undo a sent message for a maximum 30 seconds, of which the “Undo Send” has to be enabled by the user. What Google does is to hold the mail in their mail server for a maximum of 30 seconds after which it sends the mail to the recipient’s mail server. Once the mail has been to the recipient’s email server, it has no control over it, therefore it cannot recall the mail.
Below is a step by step tutorial on how to enable the feature in Gmail.
Step 1: Login to your gmail account
Step 2: At the top right corner of your screen, click on the gear icon. Click on Settings.
Step 3: Under Settings, you would see many tabbed options. Click the Labs Menu
Step 4: Third from the button, you would see the Undo Send feature. Select Enable. And then click on Save changes. Wait for the web page to reload. You have enabled the Undo Send feature, but you need to increase the amount of time you can recall from 10 seconds which is the default to 30 seconds which is the maximum.
Step 5: At the top right corner of your screen, click on the gear icon. Click on Settings
Step 6: Under Settings, you would see many tabbed options. Click the General Menu. Scroll down till you see the Undo Send feature. If you do not see it, it means the feature has not been enabled. Go back to Step 3.
Step 7: You can chose the cancellation period from 5 seconds to 30 seconds max.
Step 8: Select the amount of time, you want to allow to recall a sent message. And then click on Save changes.
Step 9: After sending a new message, you would see the undo link at the top of the page. If you click on it, your message would not be sent.
See you soon!
Simi