How to recall an electronic mail – and why you lot shouldn't exercise information technology!

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At some indicate in time, I'm sure you've sent an email that you lot desperately want to take back. The moment you hit the "Send" button you panic! Oh no! The e-mail is out on the Internet and you'd do anything to become it back. Y'all open up upwardly the email yous accidentally sent and to your keen relief yous see an option in Outlook to "Call up" the message. Simply what happens when you click "Recollect" in Outlook? Is your message really removed from the recipient's mailbox? In almost cases – No! In this article, I will share with you how the "Retrieve" electronic mail role works in Outlook and why you're probably better off not using it.

How "Think" bulletin works

The "Think" functionality is available from Microsoft Outlook version 2003 to the current version.

In the beneath example I've sent an email to my colleague Peter, but I've accidentally attached the interview feedback from the interview I had with Peter – not the new job candidate! Needless to say, I badly want to recall this message and replace information technology with an electronic mail with the right attachment.

To recall a message you have sent, become to your "Sent Items", open up the email message and nether "Actions" click "Recall This Message".

Here you can cull to "Delete unread copies of this bulletin" or to "Delete unread copies and replace with a new message".

Recall This Message dialogue box | © Business Productivity

In this scenario, I will delete the email and replace it with an email with the correct attachment. If you bank check the pick to "Tell me if recollect succeeds or fails for each recipient" y'all will become an email telling you if Outlook was able to recall the message or not.

If you lot are in luck and recalling the bulletin actually works (see more than details what is required for it to work below), the email volition be deleted and replaced with the new, correct one. There will be no trace of the original electronic mail that you recalled, the receiver volition never know that you lot recalled the electronic mail.

Recalled email | © Business Productivity

You volition receive an email notifying you lot that the e-mail was recalled successfully.

Email notification successful message recall | © Business Productivity

Recall message only works if the post-obit criteria are met

The higher up example is great if bulletin recall works y'all tin relax and you don't have to acquit the agony of your mistake. However, information technology is very seldom that bulletin recall is successful like in the example above – especially today when people read their email on a number of different devices. For message remember to be successful, all of the post-obit have to be true:

  • You have sent the electronic mail to someone (one or multiple people) within your own system
  • Your organization is using Microsoft Exchange every bit your email server
  • The recipient is using Microsoft Outlook (and Outlook is running) and logged on to the server
  • The recipient hasn't already read the message
  • The bulletin hasn't been moved from the inbox

What happens when the criteria are not met?

If i or more of the criteria higher up are not met, your message volition not be deleted from the receiver's inbox. Instead, the receiver volition run into an boosted email informing him or her that you would similar to recall the e-mail.

In the beneath instance I've tried to recollect an email sent to Ariel. Since she is outside our organization and since she is not using Exchange or Outlook the message recall does non succeed.  An electronic mail titled "Recall:" is sent, but the original, wrong email is non deleted from the recipient'due south inbox.

Email titled Recall received | © Business Productivity

If you lot are lucky, the receiver volition see that you want to recollect the e-mail and just delete it or ignore information technology. Unfortunately, the "recall" message oft sparks the receiver's curiosity. Now he or she volition definitely open upwards and read the initial email and try to figure out why you wanted to recall the bulletin.

Other recommendations to prevent unwanted email to be sent

Since it is so seldom that message recall works, I recommend that you don't apply it at all! It just adds more than focus to the wrong email. If y'all often ship an incorrect email I would suggest other workarounds. For instance, you tin can add a rule to Outlook that keeps your email in the Outbox for a few minutes earlier they are sent. That way you have time to "catch" the message before it is sent (to learn how to do that read this article).

Check out our How-to Outlook website for free Outlook 2013 video tutorials hither. You can as well have a look at out our other How-to sites for gratis Office 2013 tutorials here (more How-to sites coming soon!).