Email (electronic mail) is a way to send and receive messages electronically across a computer network. The email can include a simple text message, an important document, an image, a presentation, and so on. Many electronic mail services are available that enable us to send and receive emails and Outlook, Yahoo, and Gmail are one of them.
Sometimes, after sending an email, some users want to revert or unsend it due to various reasons. A user may send the email to the wrong address, the user may make some bunderistic mistake in the email, or may forget to attach important documents or files, and so on. These situations can not be avoided as mail that was sent to the wrong address may have critical or confidential information. Or some bunderistic mistakes may create a huge mess.
In this guide, we will demonstrate:
- How to Unsend Emails on Outlook Desktop?
- Bonus Tip: How to Recall Email on Outlook Desktop?
- How to Unsend Emails on Gmail?
- How to Unsend Email on Gmail Mobile?
- Bonus Tip: How to Enable Confirm Before Sending Action on Gmail?
- How to Unsend Emails on Yahoo?
How to Unsend Emails on Outlook Desktop?
Outlook is a Microsoft service that is also available in the Microsoft 365 suite. It permits us to send/receive emails and manage user data, calendars, and contacts. It is mostly used in organizations for team collaboration, sharing data and important documents, scheduling tasks, and so on.
Microsoft Outlook introduces the new feature of “Undo” which enables the user to undo or revert the user action that they recently performed such as deleting an important email from the inbox. This “Undo” option can also be used to unsend the sent email. The “Undo” feature is only available on Outlook.com, Outlook desktop client, and Outlook Mac. In contrast, mobile Outlook does not support this option yet either on Android or IOS.
To unsend the emails on the Outlook desktop client, go through the following demonstration.
Step 1: Launch Outlook Desktop Client
First, launch the Outlook desktop application via the Windows Start menu:
Step 2: Open Outlook Settings
Click on the below pointed “Settings Gear” icon to launch the Outlook settings:
Step 3: Navigate to Mail Settings
Navigate to the “Mail” settings from the left pane. After that, open the “Compose and reply” settings:
Step 4: Set “Undo Send” Time
Scroll down to the “Undo send” setting option. Here, use the below slider to set the time period in which the user can unsend or undo the email message. For instance, we have set “10” sec to Undo the sent message. To save changes, hit the “Save” button:
Step 5: Compose New Mail
Now, compose a new mail by hitting the below highlighted “New mail” icon:
Step 6: Unsend the Mail
Type the recipient email address to send the email, add the suitable title in the “Subject” file, and type your message. To send the email, hit the “Send” button:
Upon doing so, the small box will flash up at the bottom of the screen. Click on the “Undo” option to unsend the email. This box will be visible or accessible for the time period that the user has set from the “Undo send” slider in step 4:
Step 7: Verification
To check if we have unsend the sent email effectively or not, navigate to the “Sent Items” mailbox and verify whether the sent email exists or not. If the email does not exist in the mailbox it means we have successfully unsend the email. Otherwise, all the sent emails can be found in the “Sent Items” mailbox:
Here, you can see we do not have recently sent an email which means we have successfully performed the “Undo” action and unsend the email:
Bonus Tip: How to Recall Email on Outlook Desktop?
Sometimes users may fail to avail of the unsend option as this is accessible for a very short duration and users have to perform the “Undo” action quickly to unsend the email. In case, if they fail to undo the sent email, the Outlook desktop client enables us to recall the email. Recalling the email means deleting the email from the recipient’s inbox. However, this recall operation can be used with some limitations such as both sender and recipient having the same Microsoft account or exchange service under the same organization then they can perform a “Recall” action.
To recall the email on the Outlook desktop application, go through the following demonstration.
Step 1: Compose New Mail
First, compose an email, type the recipient mail address in the “To” field, add a suitable title, and compose the message. After that, send the mail by hitting the “Send” button:
Step 2: Open “Sent Items” Mailbox
In order to recall the sent email, open the “Sent Items” mailbox from the Outlook dashboard:
Step 3: Recall the Sent Mail
After that, double-click on the mail that you want to recall:
Next, press the “Recall message” icon from the Outlook ribbon to recall the email:
Upon doing so, the confirmation message will appear on the screen. Hit the “OK” button to proceed:
The below output indicates that we have performed the recall action:
Note: To get a detailed guide on what Outlook recall action is and how it works, follow our associated article “Recall an email on Outlook”.
How to Unsend Emails on Gmail?
Gmail is a web-based email service that is provided and managed by Google. It is the largest mailing service worldwide. It permits its users to send and receive emails and also offers 15 GB of cloud storage to store the emails. It is easily accessible through web browsers and mobile devices.
Gmail also supports the “Undo” action to unsend the sent emails. This action can be easily performed on any device or platform. On Windows and Mac OS, users can use Gmail from the browser as there is no official Gmail app version available.
To unsend the email on the Gmail web from Windows and Mac, follow the provided instructions.
Step 1: Open Gmail Settings
First, navigate to the provided link to access “Gmail” login. After that, provide your login credentials. To launch the Gmail settings, click on the below highlighted “Gear” icon:
The “Quick Settings” will appear on the screen. To access all Gmail settings, click on the “See all settings” link:
Step 2: Set “Undo Send” Time
From the “General” settings menu, scroll down to “Undo Send” settings. Set the cancellation period from the below-pointed drop-down. During the cancellation period, the user can undo or unsend the email. For demonstration, we have set the “20 seconds” duration to perform the “Undo” action:
Now, scroll down to the end and save the changes by hitting the “Save Changes” button:
Step 3: Compose a New Mail
To compose the new mail, first, click on the “Compose” button that appears at top left corner of the screen:
Type the email address of the recipient in the “To” field, a suitable subject in the “Subject” field, and compose a message. After that, press the “Send” option to send the email:
Step 4: Unsend the Sent Email
Upon doing so, the small box will flash out at the bottom left corner for the duration that the user has set to perform the Undo action. To unsend the sent mail, hit the “Undo” option:
Step 5: Verification
To verify if the email is successfully unsend or not, navigate to the “Sent” mailbox. Here, you can see we do not have sent mail here which means we have performed the “Undo” action effectively:
How to Unsend Email on Gmail Mobile?
The Android mobile and iPhone have the same Gmail interface. To unsend the email from your respective mobile device, go through the following illustration.
Step 1: Launch the Gmail App
First, launch the Gmail app in mobile by hitting “Gmail” icon:
Step 2: Compose a New Mail
To compose a new mail, click on the “Compose” button:
Compose a new email by adding the recipient address in the “To” field, adding suitable title, and a message. After that, hit the below highlighted “Send” icon:
Step 3: Unsend the Email
To unsend the email, click on the “Undo” button. Remember that, this “undo” option appeared on the screen for a very short time period. Users are required to perform unsend action very quickly:
This action will move back the user to the compose email page to make changes and resend the email.
Bonus Tip: How to Enable Confirm Before Sending Action on Gmail?
Sometimes, the user may fail to perform an undo action as this is available for very short intervals. To avoid sending the wrong emails and to take precautionary measures, the user can enable the “Confirm before sending” action that will show an alert box before sending each email to the recipient.
To enable the “Confirm before sending” action on Gmail mobile, follow the below steps:
Step 1: Launch Gmail Settings
First, launch the Gmail settings from the Gmail dashboard:
Step 2: Navigate to General Settings
After that, navigate to the “General settings”:
Step 3: Enable Confirm Before Sending Action
Scroll down to “Action Confirmations” settings, and mark the below-highlighted checkbox to enable the “Confirm before sending” action:
Step 4: Verification
To verify whether we have enabled the “Confirm before sending” action or not, compose a new email and hit the “Send” icon to send the email:
Upon doing so, the confirmation box will appear on the screen. To send the email, hit the “Yes” button:
That is how the user can add a check in sending the emails from the Gmail app.
How to Unsend Emails on Yahoo?
Yahoo is a search engine and World Wide Web (www) directory. It also offers us a Yahoo mailing service that enables us to send and receive emails universally. Unfortunately, till now yahoo mailing services do not provide the “Undo” or Unsend option for Desktop and Mac users. In contrast, mobile users can unsend the email within a very short time span of 3 sec.
To undo or unsend the emails on Yahoo, go through the following steps.
Step 1: Launch Yahoo
First, search for “Yahoo” in the mobile search menu and launch it by hitting below highlighted icon:
Step 2: Compose a New Mail
Next, compose a new mail by clicking on the “Pencil” icon:
Provide the recipient’s mail address, set the suitable subject, and compose the message. After that, press the “Send” button:
Step 3: Unsend the Email
After sending the email, hit the “Undo” button to quickly unsend the email. Remember that, this “Undo” option will appear on the screen for a short interval of 3 seconds:
If the user successfully attempts the “Undo” operation, the email will never be sent to the recipient address and automatically moved to the “Drafts” folder.
Step 4: Verification
For verification, click on the “Inbox” mailbox icon to open the Yahoo mail dashboard:
Navigate to the “Drafts” mailbox:
Here, you can see we have successfully unsend the email from the Yahoo mobile app:
That is all about unsending emails on Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo.
Conclusion
To unsend the emails on Outlook, Gmails, and Yahoo, the “undo” option is used. This operation can be visible and performed within a very short time span. On Windows, the user can set the time duration of Outlook’s “Undo” action to “10” seconds, for Gmail, it can be “30” seconds. On Mobile, the Undo operation can be performed within the default set time for all Outlook, Yahoo, and Gmail mailing apps. In this blog, we have illustrated how to unsend emails on Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo.