We have all done it once or twice in our lives, sending out an email and then regretting it a few seconds later. It could be that you sent it to the wrong person, forgot to add an attachment, or it could be a message you did not mean to send at all. As soon as you clicked on that send button, you knew you were doomed.
That is not so true for Gmail. There is a feature in Gmail not known to a lot of people called the “undo send“, which lets you recall a message right after you sent it. It can be found in the Google Labs section, a place where users can test out new products or features for Google projects. Keep in mind though that since this feature is in Google Labs, it can change or be removed at anytime.
Since the feature is still in the testing stages, it only allows you to undo the message for 30 seconds. It does not exactly recall the message or take it back from where you sent it, it simply holds your email for 30 seconds before mailing it out, giving you a chance to undo it, just in case. Enabling the “undo send” feature is quite easy even if you are not familiar with Labs.
- Log in to your Gmail account and then click on “more” found on the top left of your screen, then on the drop down menu, click on “even more”. You will be taken to a new window with different Google features, look for the one that says Google Labs. You can also go towww.googlelabs.com.
- Once you’re on the Google Labs page you will see a column on the right that says “Other experiments at Google”, choose Gmail Labs. This will take you to your Gmail Settings page under the Labs section where you will see a list of Available Labs.
- Go all the way down until you see the feature called “Undo send”. Choose the Enable option, and then hit the “Save changes” button on the lower left-hand side.
- Now you have to go back to the Gmail main page, you will now see the green Labs beaker next to your email address; this tells you that the Gmail Labs feature is enabled.
- Click on Settings again, this time you will be on the General section, where you will be able to adjust the length of time that you have to “undo send”. You can choose any time from 5 to 30 seconds.
- Scroll down to the bottom to save your changes.
- Now every time you send a message, you will have the option to undo. This will be right next to the notification that says “”Your message has been sent”, found on top of your screen. When you click Undo, you will be taken to the message draft where you can delete make changes before it is mailed out.
