A Lighter Workday

Guides

How to Unsend an Email in Outlook and Gmail

To unsend an email, turn on Undo send before you need it. In Gmail it gives you up to 30 seconds, and in new Outlook and Outlook on the web up to 10 seconds, to click Undo after you press Send. Once that window has passed, the email is gone, and Outlook's recall is a maybe, not a guarantee.

Why turn on Undo send

Most send mistakes are noticed in the first few seconds: a missing attachment, the wrong "Reply all", a typo in a name. Undo send holds the email back for a short moment, so you can catch it before it leaves.

It costs nothing and takes a minute to set up. The only change you'll notice is a small "Undo" button after each send.

Undo send in Gmail

  1. In Gmail on the web, select the Settings gear, then See all settings.
  2. On the General tab, find Undo Send.
  3. Set the send cancellation period to 30 seconds.
  4. Scroll down and select Save Changes.

After you press Send, a small box with Undo appears in the bottom-left corner. Select it, and the email opens again as a draft. The Gmail app on your phone also shows an Undo option right after sending.

Undo send in new Outlook and Outlook on the web

  1. Select the Settings gear.
  2. Go to Mail → Compose and reply.
  3. Under Undo send, move the slider to 10 seconds, the maximum.
  4. Select Save.

After sending, an Undo option appears for those seconds. Select it to bring the email back as a draft.

Classic Outlook for Windows: delay every email instead

Classic Outlook doesn't have an Undo send button. A rule that holds sent emails in your Outbox for a minute or two does the same job.

  1. Select File → Manage Rules & Alerts → New Rule.
  2. Under Start from a blank rule, choose Apply rule on messages I send and select Next.
  3. Leave the conditions empty and select Next. Confirm that the rule should apply to every message.
  4. Choose defer delivery by a number of minutes, then set it to 1 or 2.
  5. Select Finish, then OK.

Emails now wait in your Outbox for that time. To stop one, open it from the Outbox and delete it or edit it. To delay a single email instead, open Options → Delay Delivery before sending.

Undo send vs. recall in Outlook

Undo send stops an email before it leaves. Recall tries to pull back an email that has already been delivered. They are not the same thing.

Recall only works when:

It doesn't work for people outside your company, or for Gmail and other email services. Some recipients may also see a message saying that you tried to recall the email.

If you still want to try: in classic Outlook, open the sent message and select File → Info → Message Resend and Recall → Recall This Message. In new Outlook and Outlook on the web, open the sent message and look for Recall message in the message's more options (…) menu.

Sent an email by mistake? What to do next

Once an email has gone, a quick, short correction is usually better than silence or a long apology.

  1. Check what actually went wrong. Wrong person, wrong attachment, wrong number, or just a typo?
  2. Ignore small typos. Most people won't notice, and a correction draws more attention.
  3. For anything that matters, send a correction within minutes. Keep it to one or two sentences.
  4. If the email went to the wrong person and was confidential, tell your manager or IT. Your company may have a process for this.

A prompt for the correction email:

Write a short, calm correction email. The earlier email said [what was wrong], and the correct information is [what is right]. Keep it to two sentences, with no long apology. Tone: [neutral / friendly].

Use the AI tool your employer has approved. In public tools, remove names, numbers and anything confidential. Read every draft before you send it.

Common mistakes

Get the free guide

Undo send is one of the three settings in The Calmer Inbox, a free guide with a 15-minute morning email routine and 7 copy-paste AI prompts.

Related guides