Gmail officially adds 'Undo Send' Option

Probably the majority of the e-mail users have experienced that awful moment of accidental click on a ‘Send’ button, an indication of a wrong recipient, and similar issues. A recent research has shown that “How to unsend email” query has been entered to Google search millions of times all over the world. This, so called, ‘desperation query’ has the answer from now on. Gmail developers have officially announced that they are adding ‘Undo Send’ function on its email accounts. For at least several years this function has already been available to Lab users who even had the ability to use ‘Undo Send’ service on mobile mail. Although this function is desperately needed in some of the cases, don’t expect that it will allow you to undo emails sent last night. The function will provide you with a few precious seconds which will protect you from serious troubles or unpleasant situations of sending very private email to a huge audience accidentally or a quick change of one’s minds to say some offensive words to your ex-best friend or even boss.

At the moment of writing, the ‘Undo Send’ function is off by default. It means that you have to activate it via ‘Settings’ manually. As mentioned, do not expect too much – you will be able to select a time lad from 5 to 30 seconds. That should be enough to cancel the email that caused doubts from the first minute. In case you need detailed instructions how to turn on ‘Undo Send’ function, then follow these steps:

  • Log in to your Gmail account.
  • Find a gear icon right below your profile picture, which is typically shown in the right-hand corner unless you have changed the general style of your Gmail account.
  • Find and select ‘Settings’.
  • Look for the ‘Enable Undo Send’ option and mark it with a tick.
  • Don’t forget to select the cancellation period (5,10,20 or 30 sec.).
  • Finally, at the bottom of the page, click ‘Save Changes’ button.

Once you activate ‘Undo Send’ function, it may still seem that your email letter reach the sender once you click ‘Send’ button. However, in reality the message is sent only after 30sec when the time of cancellation passes by. In order to cancel an email, you should hit ‘Undo’ button at the top of the page.

NOTE: Do NOT click ‘View Message’ or open the other window right after sending the email if you still have doubts whether let the email to reach the recipient or cancel it because by clicking this button because this way ‘Undo Send’ function will be no longer active.

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Jake Doe
Jake Doe - Computer technology geek

Jake Doe is the news editor at UGetFix. Since he met Ugnius Kiguolis in 2003, they both launched several projects that spread awareness about cybercrimes, malware, and other computer-related problems.

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