How to unsend an email in Gmail

One of the most widely used email services worldwide is Gmail. It’s the preferred option for personal accounts because it’s free and simple to set up. Businesses of all sizes also utilise Gmail, which is a crucial Google Workspace application. Additionally, you can simply keep track of your email messages even on the road thanks to the Gmail app for iOS and Android.

However, convenience has a price. It’s dangerous to respond to emails rapidly using the comparatively small keyboard on your phone. Regardless of how frequently you review an email before sending it, there’s a significant probability that you’ll overlook a mistake or inadvertently include an incorrect recipient. 

To fix your error, use the “undo send” feature. We’ll walk you through using and activating Gmail’s Undo Send function in this tutorial.

What does Gmail’s Undo Send mean?

After you click the Send button on an email, you can use the Undo Send option to retract it. It was first made available to the public in 2015 for desktop users and in 2018 for Android users, having begun as a Gmail Labs feature. Regular and Workspace users can both use it, thus anyone with a Gmail account can benefit from it.

You must enable this feature and select how long you want it to stay active before using it. The normal “message sent” indication appears after that, along with an additional “Undo” button that is active for the amount of time you have set, when you create and send an email.

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This feature has a straightforward operation. Gmail retains your email for the duration you specify, even if you hit the Send button. Gmail sends the email once that period of time has elapsed. Recipients who use other email accounts, such as those from Microsoft and Apple, would not be able to access the sent emails, even if Google were to programme a means to retrieve them from the Gmail server. Thus, the easiest approach to ensure that you can utilise the functionality effectively and check for errors twice is to hold the email.

How to unsend a Gmail message from your web browser

Now that you’ve set up Gmail, let’s see how to use the unsend option. Both the desktop and mobile versions of Gmail support this feature. When you click Send on your Gmail email from a desktop browser, take the following actions to reverse the send:

1. Create a new message in Gmail for the web and click Send.
2. After you click Send, the message sent dialog box appears at the bottom of the page. You also see View Message and Undo Send options.
3. Click the Undo button in the pop-up menu to cancel the email and return to the editor to correct your mistake.

How to unsend an email in the Gmail app for Android or iOS

For Android smartphones and tablets, the Google Play Store offers the Gmail mobile app. For owners of iPhones and iPads, there’s also an iOS app. If you frequently send emails while on the go, you’ve probably accidentally typed more characters than needed on your phone’s screen. Unsending Gmail messages using the Gmail app is just as easy as doing it from a web browser.

1. Compose a new email in the mobile app and tap Send.
2. A small dialog box at the bottom of the screen confirms the email was sent. You’ll also see an Undo option on the right in the pop-up menu.
3. Tap the Undo button to unsend the email and return to the text editor.

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