Feature Friday: Undo Send in Gmail
Here’s a good reason to read the comments at AVC. You learn things.
On Monday I wrote a post about sending stuff to the wrong people and a number of folks in the comments explained that there is a Google labs feature called Undo Send that holds your “sent mail” for up to 30 seconds before it actually sends it.
I immediately added it to my gmail and feel safer now knowing I have it. I have not used it yet, but I am sure I will.
Here’s how to add it.
Go to gmail settings, then click on the Labs tab and find “Undo Send” and click enable:
Save that change.
Then in the general tab, you will see this:
You can set the cancellation period to anything between 5 seconds and 30 seconds. Save that change too.
I’m honestly not sure why this isn’t a standard feature in Gmail. It seems so useful.
Comments (Archived):
i’ve used this for a while, its invaluable. in fact i’ve probably used it to undo sending an email to you fred, when i’ve said something dumb. 🙂
i totally agree
Lemme guess, he sent you an email asking you if his idea was a good idea…but 30 secs later he canceled the send.
I’ve done this a few times… 🙂
People respect Fred’s opionion. Just because they don’t have the experience to understand their question isn’t going to get them the results they want doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try.
I use it All. The. Time. Not sure what that says about me, but I sure do miss it in every other email platform I use (including Gmail Mobile).
It’s not the standard feature because people want email to be almost real time. In which case they should really be using a different system but email is the swiss army knife of communication. There’s a requirement for email like decentralised comms but for realtime systems. XMPP should be that but messaging someone cross network or system is not possible. http://matrix.org/ could solve that problem, or perhaps some other federated twitter like form of communication.
I think you are looking for http://www.slack.com/
No not at all. Slack is basically classic IM. There needs to be something between Email and IM that is decentralised. Think Twitter using the SMTP protocol. Providing the flexibility of public and private conversations.
I have been using this for a couple years, but I cannot find where to enable it in the Gmail app (Android). Just sent an email to the wrong people…
I don’t think it works from Mobile, but if you figure this out, let me know.
Have looked into before, not built into gmail for android, unfortunately
Think I saw some tweet along the lines of “Google’s Undo Send Feature: The only reason why I still have a job”
An “open mike” on a cell phone many years ago was the beginning of the end of a relationship I was in. (Turned out to be a blessing in disguise…)
Yup…and I think 30 seconds is the right window. I had it at 20 seconds initially, but missed a few. 30 seconds is safe (and it’s the maximum allowable too).
The only problem with this is that you start getting people’s expectations too high. There’s value in being an idiot sometimes.I mean– Fred… how many times have you looked at a text from @HowardLindzon and been like “I have no idea what that means but whatever it’s Howard”.I like being the guy with typos and the occasional inappropriate remark…. it’s more reflective of who I actually am.LOL that said ya there are times where I’d like to undo an unintentional OH FUCK I REPLIED TO ALL
I like being the guy with typos and the occasional inappropriate remark.I have often used exactly that type of thing when doing some deals actually.And many years ago I was credited with inventing the technique [1] of grossly misspelling a word that you didn’t know how to spell so it looked like a typo instead of ignorance.[1] By myself that is…
A friend of mine invests in real estate and it is common for them to use similar techniques to appear unsophisticated when they are trying to acquire properties.
For sure. However there is always a balance with things like this which is why the more time you spend doing different negotiating the better you get at it seat of the pants and gut. Which is very important.For example I get emails all the time from people pretending to be someone they aren’t with no resources “we are poor” or “side hobby project” or “for my wife’s birthday” etc. it’s actually quite typical. And in one way or another you either have to blow them off or get them to be honest (although not always every situation is different I can’t stress that enough).The point is if a seller doesn’t take you seriously they won’t even engage with you. And if they won’t engage you can’t negotiate. So sometimes it’s better to say “we are X and we want what you have but we only want to pay so much for it”. (Once again “sometimes” doesn’t mean “always” can’t stress that enough).In the case of real estate, people also tend to work harder to close a deal with someone who has experience and will close in the end. They don’t want to waste their time with “triflers” (essentially tire kickers).Now if your friend is buying from little old ladies one technique might work that wouldn’t work with a more sophisticated seller (who wouldn’t even give that type of buyer the time of day). And so on.A variation of the “appear unsophisticated” I sometimes use when buying cars. Typically when you walk into a dealership the salesman can tell if you have been to other dealerships and have seen the car just by your actions and where your eyes roam. So if you find it advantageous to make them think you know nothing about the car you might be interested in you have to really put on quite an act to get by their intuitive radar. Because once a seller (autos or otherwise) knows that you want what they have the price could almost certainly rise.
Renumerated generossly, no dowt.
Reading old English text – I mean quite old – not even Victorian era but before, like going up to Chaucer (Queen Elizabeth I’s day?) or before – can be entertaining, because of their sometimes quite different spellings for words from what is used nowadays.Example that I’ve heard attributed to Chaucer:The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.http://en.wikiquote.org/wik…
I like being the guy with typos and the occasional inappropriate remark…. it’s more reflective of who I actually am.I think you also have to understand that there are many people out there who work for someone else and it matters greatly what people think of what you say.While I have always liked to say with respect to business “we all eat shit we just eat at different tables”. There is a big difference between saying the wrong thing to one customer that you have (if you are an entrepreneur) out of many customers (where nobody controls a large % of your business) and saying the wrong thing in a work environment which could cost you your job or the cooperation of a co-worker.
Given the state of the internet with all the “in character” behavior. I think people will begin to realize if they aren’t talking to someone in person then it really isn’t worth worrying about.
Yeah, the un-send feature does involve a bit of self-censorship…which isn’t a bad thing unless you get paranoid about it. I mean, you have to screw up to learn things…also there are times when it’s important to let your personality out and not just look at everything as a calculated logic play.
Instead of delaying all the emails I send externally, I actually prefer the internet connection to go down a bit as soon as I ‘send’ a bigger emails/reply all so I can proof read the whole thing before it is back up
i played golf with Howard and his son Max today. they both beat me. it was a blast. what a character Howard is and his son is a chip off the old block
I discovered this feature a year back after sending an incomplete email by mistake and regretting on my stupidity and have found it immensely useful on different occasions. Should be made a part of the standard features as you said
I’m honestly not sure why this isn’t a standard feature in Gmail. It seems so useful.Maybe because it reinforces a bad habit which is not to think and check what you are doing before you hit send. [1] (I actually don’t think that’s why. The real reason is probably closer to the fact that gmail is an evergreen product to google and they don’t give a shit about it..)I think in the end having this feature will create an extra layer of false confidence that will end up in the end creating more email sent to the wrong place. After all at what point do you even realize that you sent something to the wrong place?[1] My car has a lane change assistant light and I can see how using it could make you not think to actually look before you change lanes. Not only that but it’s pretty easy to hit the mirror button by accident and disengage the lane change assist so if you get into the habit of using it (and not checking mirrors) you could be setting yourself up for an accident.
Can I get a cancellation period of 20 years? I need a few do-overs.
But if you do that. Then you would also lose what you have learned. I think it’s better to be able to say you made mistakes and learned than to say you’ve not made any mistakes.
I can’t imagine NOT having this. Use it almost daily.
A couple of years ago, I decided to enable this option in my account .. neeeever used it, until late last year – IT SAVED MY ASS ..When I write e-mails, I start by pouring all my emotions in the e-mail, then I rewrite it a couple of times until it says what it needs to say without being rude.This time, I accidentally used the keyboard combo for sending the email before it was ready to be sent.This option is the best invention since mass produced beer.
Here’s a trick to avoid that:- when you’re sending or replying to a sensitive email like that, delete the recipient’s email (or add it at the very end) right away. That way, if you accidentally send it, it won’t go anywhere.
Excellent practical tip I’ve done that many times along with composing the email in a text editor as well and then pasting into email client when complete.
I do this on a regular basis. It’s a great move because it always seems the one email you can’t afford to mess up is the one it happens to.
Actually the trick is not replying to sensitive emails at all. Always assume you have no control over who reads then. Forwards, cc and bcc mean they can go all over the place. Lots of CRM-systems copy them automatically, etc.
Also always assume email is not private. Don’t send sensitive information, via email, at all if you can help it.
hi ricki see that you’ve become a regular here. that’s awesome. we love regulars. i would encourage you to take (guest) out of your name and create a disqus profile with an avatar. all the AVC regulars do that and it really is great
I know that disqus has some nice features Fred but I’ve had so many problems with some group of fools over the past couple years that I’ve had to change everything about how I do the online thing. They’ve really caused me a bunch of problems both personal and business..So I’m still in limbo with anything that provides tracking ability. They were really good at what they do and I lost some relationships because of them..I try to drive the conversation to more intense discussion. But my rhetoric here probably is more confusing to most than helpful so people probably don’t care to know if it’s me or someone else using my first name.
i’m not down with that approach Rickplease authenticate yourself and your comments so that people can know you and trust youyou can use a pseudonym like Fake Grimlock does. that’s fine and we welcome thatbut we want a single identity and an email that we can use to reach out to youthat provides trust and continuitythat is what this community is based uponif you are unwilling to do that, then you are not welcome here as a regular and you are behaving as a regular right now
I understand Fred. But it’s not right for you to try to force me into harm’s way. You know what goes on with the internet these days and to try to force someone to provide any information that makes them trackable, especially knowing that I’ve had problems in the past, is a dangerous thing to do. I can tell you for certain that having a trackable email makes someone more vulnerable..Forcing me into a vulnerable situation is not proper and violates my rights to security and safety. What you are doing is trying to force me into something against my will. Yes you are using a work around by saying “being a regular”. But you’re not taking the opportunity to say what you don’t like about my posting here. You’re just singling me out only because of my desire to stay safe on the web..If you don’t like what I post. Just say so. That’s fair. Many public places have rules about content and behavior. I would have to say that it’s censorship but I’m not against you wanting to keep this blog flowing with certain content..I am OK with not being a regular. But you are trying to prevent me from having a voice just because I don’t want to be put in harm’s way. That’s not right Fred. I’ve always been open and honest here and do not use profanity or behave inappropriately..If I were only posting on your site without signing up I would understand. But I’m not. I’m just not comfortable doing the things you do via the web. You’re a big web fan and that’s great. Some don’t want to do what you do and we have that right..I think you might be violating my right to free speech Fred. You are also forcing me to be on a list or to profile me in some way. While I don’t mind visiting less often. I think you have just violated my rights. I’ll check with the proper authorities just to be sure. I have no argument with this. If you don’t want me here fine. But it does make me wonder about this whole thing. I make myself available via phone to anyone so I’m not hiding. I’m just not going full-web.
you can do what you want. nobody is forcing you to do anythingi am just telling you what the community norms are hereif you choose to disregard them, i can’t assure you that you will be welcome here
I’m used to it Fred. Some people understand the situation and some don’t..I’ve already noticed that certain people don’t respond. That’s OK. I don’t judge people. I can’t walk on water so I put forth effort to make myself a better person instead of judging others.
My rule to the teams are:Always forward never reply to anything with sensitivity involved.Never at like everyone isn’t reading the mail.The more sensitive the item the more picking up the phone is the right answer.
Never say something about someone that you would not say to them.
So true and almost impossible to really live by!
And if the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me 😉
Classic old way!
I’d love a 30 second delay for my mouth.
As I age, I’d love a 30 second delay for my ass.
Oh, shit. Did I say that? I need a 30 second delay for my comments.
I don’t know Jim, I mean we don’t know each other well, but something tells me a 30 second delay might not be your biggest problem..
BOOM! – we have the comment of the week!
Since when has AVC site become an XXX
How is that XXX? Is burping XXX? Bodies make noises. #Human
#febreeze
Funniest Ad ever. Got as a Secret Santa Gift. It actually works. 32mm views: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Wait, you got that?? I’m so jealous!
I honestly thought it was a joke. I know I am tough to buy for and the limit was some low limit. It works. Talk about entrepreneurs. Think how much they’ve made
I loved that they took the Orbit commercials and changed the target from the mouth to the ass. A fun spin spoof. I have no idea how much they’ve made. I am more focused on the fact I know someone who has this curiosity! I wanted it from the first minute I saw it.
The founder, inventor, owner, and CEO is woman: Suzy Batiz So when we talk about woman entrepreneurs, she is a true success story. She apparently has mostly female staff and is a true rags to riches story: http://www.dmagazine.com/pu…
HA!!! Hilarious.
Check out their Santa one for this Christmas 13.5mm viewshttps://www.youtube.com/wat…
instead of 30-sec delay, how about slowing it down. oh wait , you can’t do that… FCC will have to accept your ‘net neutrality’
I think we aired that out yesterday
ancestral delights, uh!!
Most AVC readers may think this book to be a relic, but by its words its nature is known:”Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.””And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”Thats James 3.
Does anyone know if this will this work if I send an email though my Gmail account using an email application like Apple mail or Outlook. I can just imagine sending something accidentally and then scrambling to open up Gmail screaming FUCK FUCK as I silently count down 30 secs.
aaannnd now I need a redo for signing in here with the wrong twitter account. LOL
Useful feature but I’ve been hesitant to enable lest Google abruptly cancel it later (without explanation) as it is wont to do with its products. Took me a while to overcome my pangs of withdrawal when they pulled that sh*t with gmail notifier (desktop).
It’s been around for about 5 years. Don’t think it’s going anywhere, and if it does that means you at least got the benefit for a while
What good is getting the benefit if it can be ripped away anytime without warning? Took a while to get out of my feelings about notifier cancellation, so, nope, not going to let ’em play me like that again. Eh, I’ll plod along with forcing myself to pause and proof-skim before sending and worst case, re-reply with correction if necessary.
Ya,, that Gmail desktop notifier tool was useful – you could know if you got an important email, even when you did not have the Gmail window in focus. (Provided you were looking at the screen at the time, of course.)
I have had Outlook set up this way for years. here’s how in v2013 (it’s not as simple as gmail unsend). 1. Click Home/Rules/Manage-Rules-And-Alerts. 2. Click New Rule. 3. Click Apply-rule-on-messages-I-send/Next. 4. Click Next again and Yes when asked “this rule will be applied to every message you send. Is this correct?” 5. Click defer-delivery-by-a-number-of-minutes. 6. Click on underlined “a number of” and set to however long you want it to wait (I use 1). 7. Click Finish.now, every message you send will sit in your Outbox for a minute before being sent. has saved my neck many a time…
As a scatterbrain, the first draft of everything I send contains an error or typo. So I use the Undo as a drafting tool. I write the email, feel 100% confident, Send, Undo, then double-check (find an error 80% of the time), then send again.
Applied for a job the other day and forgot one of the attachments. GMail Undo Send was there for me in my moment of greatest need. A true hero feature.
You can also enable the “missed attachment reminder” feature in Gmail. Then, Gmail scans the text of your email (when you click Send), and if you use a word like “attached” or “attachment”, it will check for attachments, and if there are none (i.e. you forgot to add them), it asks you if you meant to add some.
If I intend to send attachments, I add a parenthetical comment below my name closing the email like this: (4 attachments). This is below my name, but above my email template sig. I enter that comment before I compose the body of the email so that I see it at the end and I’m sure to add all attachments.I started doing this after I got sick of forgetting my attachments. It serves as a good guide for the recipient as well.
Auto retraction feature: I was drunk when I sent that mail, sorry.
Beer Goggles…or Beer Googles, as the case may be.
“Beer Googles”.lol
There are google lab features for this too!
Does Apple have anything like this. Might have to switch to Gmail…
During the delay period, I assume the email stays local on the machine. That being the case, the user would need to keep the window or email client open during the delay period.While I don’t think that would be a problem for most people who would make the effort to turn on this feature, including it as a standard would no doubt stem an unsent email epidemic throughout the populous.
I think for GMail it is kept server side.
Well then, that seems to give a whole new reason for Google to not make this feature standard. If everyone has this on, Google must waste their precious server time holding everyone’s emails for an additional 30 seconds.
Either way, It seems inconvenient for them.
There are a lot of other factors that go into that sort of cost-benefit analysis. If companies simply nixed features or products because having them expends some kind of resource then we wouldn’t have a whole lot of companies.
Of course, but with this specific feature, I think it makes more sense for Google to make it optional. The people who REALLY want to be able to edit emails after they’ve already been sent will seek out a way to do that, and the people who don’t care much will not be consuming unnecessary server time.Like all Google products, Gmail has a pretty large base of “Casual Users”.
I suppose we all have our own preferences, but if I was running a company I’d deploy my server space so that Fred Wilson used my product and got his friends to do it too. Especially valuable for a service like GMail where the corporate version is a direct revenue stream per user ($5/month if I recall correctly).
I’m not sure exactly how much server space would have to be allocated to make this work, but I suspect the publicity boost from a corporate recommendation(even from Fred Wilson) would quickly become not worth the trouble when you start to consider the global scale of this operation(and Google’s distinct lack of need for publicity).Anyway, I could be wrong, but I’m sure Google has thought about it more than all the AVC commenters combined.
You’ve defined a real world math problem that is quite solvable if you have the right data. A little research would likely reveal some numbers that would get you into the ballpark of their equation. If the math doesn’t end up working out, then you are then forced to ask yourself, what are you missing, or why would they do it if it turns out to not be cost effective?
>Google must waste their precious server space holding everyone’s emails for an additional 30 seconds.They may already be holding everyone’s emails for even longer – say to do some aggregate analysis of them.
Gmail is a cloud based email service. They’re already holding the emails on their servers. That wasn’t my point.
>They’re already holding the emails on their servers. That wasn’t my point.I know that too (cloud based) – and guessed you did too. I was merely adding that they could already be holding the mails on their servers for longer than needed in order to just send them, e.g. for analytics.
I use this all the time. I suggested this improvement:”I wish that they UNDO plugin in gmail gave you a preview like this attached giving you a chance to undo a mistake.”The top, is how the plugin works now.The bottom is how I wish it worked.This small tweak will make this plugin perfect!
That would be way, way helpful
“unsend” was one of the best things aol mail offered since the beginning of time. saved a lot of butts. but aol will never get a nod because, well, it’s aol.
In theory of course if gmail is used by both sender and recipient(s) they could also have a feature which plucks the email from someone’s inbox at a later time. Literally any time. Not going to happen but would trivial to implement assuming imap mail.
That already exists.
Not so simple if, after you send it to me I forward it to 6 people before you retract it.
Well obviously or if they print it out or do a screen grab and so on (the snapchat paradox).
With email making copies instead of using a “single origin” that is no problem. Well… Except that you didn’t want that email being re-sent to others.
BTW… How did your conference call turn out. Did you get the contract?
Also since I didn’t get the chance on the phone to explain. You requested I send you an email. But I don’t use email. I’ve experimented with temp email and it’s great for eliminating spam and hackers. But you have to catch the person when they are at their email device because the temp email goes away when you close your browser..I had many problems with email hackers and things that forced me to stop using email. It wasn’t just tom foolery going on. I was being stalked. So that’s why I couldn’t send you an email yesterday. If you want to talk in private you’ll need to call or I can call you.
It would be nice if it had a way to prevent people from hacking in and sending out emails that you don’t want sent!
This is THE BEST feature in Gmail. I deal with a lot of sensitive documents and emails (contracts, pricing, deal terms, NDA’s, etc.) and it saves my ass all the time. The best part is that you can scan your *attachments* in the preview mode after you send, in case you have to fix anything. So you send a contract out into an existing thread, and you can access the preview of that doc and still undo.The place where it can be improved is this – it ONLY works to scan what you send in an *existing* email thread. But you CANT scan your email for errors or edits in a *new email* you’re sending – your options are only to (a) blindly Undo the email you just sent, without looking at its contents; or(b) view the message (which takes away the undo option)So if they added the same ability to new emails to scan during the 30 second undo window, it would give equally great functionality across new and existing email chains.
You could try suggesting it to Google. They have a feature request feature 🙂 somewhere. I used it a couple of times. Once was to send a suggestion for hierarchical or nested labels for messages, which can be very useful.E.g. if you’re a consultant, you can label all your emails related to consulting for clients, with the “Consulting” label, and under that label, have sub-labels like for “ABC Corp.” and “DEF Inc.”. So you can then search for either a) all consulting emails, or b) only consulting emails related to a particular client.Some time later I saw that the feature was added to Gmail.
My favorite gmail extension for years now.
I’ve just realized Fred that you’ve uncovered a bigger problem. Why do so many people send out emails that they want to retract? Hmm….I know one of the most fun things to do with email is to send out something to someone that sounds like it wasn’t suppose to go to them. Then send them an email acting like you sent them something you shouldn’t. You can tell they really *think* they got you when in reality the whole thing is a twist around on them.
I think the reason it is not automatically on is many people expect emails to be delivered instantaneously.
Good point.
I have used this for years and love it. It’s possibly one of the best gmail features. 5-10 seconds is really all you need. If you delay 30 seconds it can become a problem – especially if you are on the phone with someone and they are waiting to receive the email. It has saved me numerous times.
They should have a feature where you can ‘recall’ an unread message and not restrict it to 30 secs like in outlook.
On making mistakes – I once asked my CTO why he always plays down how sharp he is.He said – I find it much easier to surprise someone pleasantly if they assume nothing about me.On this basis a resend button tunes you to make outlier monster mistakes when you make any – not so sure that is smart.
I think that is the real issue here. What is causing the mistake to be made. Instead of a bandaid. Finding the underlying issue and fixing it would be best.
Thanks, great feature and I wonder what the Duke of Wellington “Publish and be damned” would have made of it.There’d be less “foot in mouth” syndrome for all of us but, sometimes, the greatest learning is when we make those proverbial mistakes and improve on our own human fallibilities.
Had it since the beginning,good for catching that mistake right after your eyes glaze over
‘Undo’ has saved my arse numerous times. Wished the countdown still worked even after clicking on something else within Gmail.
The missed attachment reminder feature of Gmail is also useful.
Please understand, there is a reason why this is not a standard feature and will not be.All google emails are auto-scanned for texts the moment you ‘send’ the email. However, if you delay the ‘send’ using this feature, the scan gets skipped and this is largely at the request of the ad agencies.
QQ: why are you using Gmail?
Gmail is universal , yo!
yeah. so is the chickenpox.
There’s a twist though. You don’t register to chicken pox, d you ?Every man worth his wireless will have a personal account, mostly with gmail these daysNext question ?
try Hover.
such an important feature. should be default. coming to a mobile email client near you very soon
I’ve had that feature turned on for a long time. As soon as you hit send, you often remember that you were supposed to include an attachment, even though you just proofread your email. It is a great feature.
Do this: skip drinks or dinner out one night and spend that $33 on Hover. Buy a doman for $13, add a mailbox for another $20. You can set it up in Outlook or Mail or any client in 3 minutes. Across devices. Hosted by Hover, which used to be Tucows, which is solid. Then, Presto chango, no worries about data hygeine, bogus privacy policies, etc. If a 30s delay in “send” is your selling point, you’ve got bigger problems. I do it all the time. But it’s more like – it takes more than 30s to realize what I missed. Because that is what it is – you send an email and then you sit there and think, and you’re like, “damn, what I should have said was….”And I am with Andy on this – fuck it. You do that, resend an email explaining what you missed. Or fucked up. Or meant to cc: You will not be “the fool”. You are being human. Laugh it off. It happens.