3 Ways To Undo Sending an Email In Outlook

Gmail had introduced an interesting feature called “Undo Send” which recalls a sent email. The user can recall a sent email within 30 seconds of sending it using this feature. After that, the email is sent permanently to the receiver. Microsoft Outlook has a similar feature of recalling an already sent email which can be very useful in some circumstances.

This Undo Send feature needs to be manually enabled through their account settings in Gmail. Similarly, the feature in Outlook also needs to be enabled to recall a sent email.

There are several methods through which you can either recall a sent email or prevent it from being sent at all. This article discusses how you can recall a sent email in Outlook, or delay it from being officially sent after you have clicked the Send button.

Setup Undo Send in Outlook By Delaying Email

You can defer the sent emails by using Outlook rules. This method delays an email from being officially sent to the receiver by the number of minutes you configure in the rule. Although this method focuses on Outlook 2021, it can also be applied to earlier versions of the app.

Learn how to download and install Office 2021.

Follow the instructions below to set up rules for deferring sent emails.

1. Open Outlook and click File from the top ribbon menu.
2. From the Info tab, click Manage Rules & Alerts.
   
3. From the pop-up Rules and Alerts window, lick New Rule.
   
4. From the Rules Wizard, select “Apply rule on messages | send” and click Next.
   
5. On the next page, leave everything unchecked and click Next.
   
6. On the confirmation popup, click Yes.
7. Now check the box next to “defer delivery by a number of minutes” and then click the hyperlink highlighted “a number of” under the Step 2 section.
   
8. In the popup Deferred Delivery window, enter the number of minutes you want to delay the email by (between 1 and 120 minutes) and click Ok.
   
9. Back on the Rules Wizard, click Next.
10. On the next page, leave everything unchecked and click Next.
    
11. Now set a name for the rule and ensure that the box next to “Turn on this rule” is checked. Then click Finish.
    
12. Now back on the Rules and Alerts window, click Apply and Ok.

Now all your sent emails will wait for the configured number of minutes before being officially sent to the recipient.

If you have accidentally hit the send button or want to make any changes to the email, you can easily stop the email from being sent by moving it from the Outbox folder to Drafts.

Delay/Schedule Sending a Specific Email in Outlook

The above-mentioned method applies to all emails being sent from your Outlook profile. If you do not want to delay emails but only want to schedule an email to be sent later, follow the steps:

1. While composing an email in Outlook, click Options from the ribbon menu, and then click the ellipses (3 dots) from the expanded menu, click Delay Delivery.
   
2. From the popup window, ensure that the box next to “Do not deliver before” is checked, and then adjust the date and time of delivery from the drop-down menu in front of it.
   

Now, when you click the Send button, the email will not be sent. It will now automatically be delivered to the recipient at the configured time.

Recall a Sent Email in Outlook

Note: This method only works if you have an IMAP account configured on Outlook. Furthermore, it will also not work if you have an email address ending with @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com. This is because these are web-based email services and once an email is sent, it cannot be recalled.

If you have already sent an email, Outlook has a secret option to recall it if it has not been opened by the recipient. Follow the steps below to recall a sent email in Microsoft Outlook:

1. In Outlook, go to the Sent Mail folder and open the email you want to recall by double-clicking it.
   
2. Click on the ellipses (3 dots) from the ribbon menu, expand Actions, and then click Recall this message.
   
   Note: If you do not see the “Recall this message” option, it may be because you do not have a Microsoft Exchange account.
3. You will now see a popup with the following 2 options. Select the one you need and click Ok.
   • Delete undread copies of this message.
   • Delete unread copies and replace with a new new message.
     

Any unopened emails that you have sent will now be deleted/replaced from the recipient’s end.

Conclusion

These are the methods you can delay an email from sending, or recall an already sent email.

That said, there is currently no method to recall an email from web-based Outlook.com, since it is a web server, and once the email has left your account, it is beyond your control. Microsoft sheds light on this in their blog post.