How to get back a message you have Sent?

By: standss , Feb 16th, 2011
Have you ever wrote and sent a not-so-diplomatic email while in a bad mood and later wished there was only some way of calling the email back?

The Good news is, Outlook already has a built-in Recall feature which lets you do just that.

The Bad news is, it only works with Exchange server accounts and has a very low success rate, mostly because recall only works with unread messages.

For those who have a Exchange Account

If you would like to recall a email you sent a co-worker:

  • Go to the Sent Items folder and open the email you want to recall
  • In Outlook 2010/2007, click on the Other Actions menu (or Actions depending on your Outlook settings) and select “Recall this message…”
    In Older versions, click on the Actions menu and select “Recall this message…”

Recall Message
2010/2007

Recall Message
Older Outlook

After clicking Recall this Message, a dialog comes up, giving you the option of Deleting the message (if unread) or replacing the message with a new one.

If you enable the option to be told if the recall was successful, you’ll get a message back within a few minutes letting you know if the recall was successful or failed.

Note: the above method is only useful if the email you sent has not been read by the recipient.

Prevention is better then Cure

We all have heard the saying above but often enough end up looking for cures rather then preventing the mistakes in the first place.

SendGuard for outlook is a simple add-in which allows you to delay all or selected emails for a preset time in your Outbox. This lets you change your message if you’ve had a change of heart after clicking Send. For the super cautious, SendGuard can be configured from the settings screen to get confirmation before sending out emails to all or selected recipients.

What would you perfer, sending the email and then looking for a way to recall it OR safeguard yourself from sending the email in the first place?

let us know by leaving a comment on our blog

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