We usually use emails in our personal and professional life for sharing information. In our professional activity, emails decide the impression of our work and we feel embarrassed when we mistakenly send a faulty email to our seniors.
So we always get conscious about it while sending an email. Sometimes it might also happen to you forgot to add some important thing in an email or forgot to attach any file.
And if it a business mail then you think that it will make a bad impression on the recipient. It’s always good if you can recall or replace that email to the recipient. So let’s start with How to Unsend an Email in Outlook.
Today we will see how to recall, replace or unsend an email in Outlook. Outlook provides the best feature to their users to recall or replace an email. But this feature will work only when you and the recipient having an exchange account.
It provides some advantages over the standard outlook users, such as to search for multiple mailboxes, advanced security features, and the ability to retract or recall an email. You can recall, replace or unsend only an email if the recipient did not read the message.
Can I unsend an email in Outlook?
Yes, definitely you can unsend an email in Outlook if you think the recipient should not see the message. Outlook provides this feature to their users if you made any mistakes, forgot to add an attachment, or were sent to the wrong person. You can correct it and later send it to your recipient.
How to Unsend an Email in Outlook?
You can unsend an email with a few clicks. Before going to start unsend an email, make sure that both you and the recipient have a Microsoft office 365 or Microsoft exchange server account. The recipient should not open the message or marked as read.
For Outlook 2007:-
- Open your Outlook under the Mail navigation pane, click on Sent Items.
- Now all your sent messages will appear. Now open the message that you want to retract or replace.
- On the Message tab, an Actions group will there. In that, click on Other Actions.
- A popup menu will appear, then click on Recall this message.
- Under the Recall this message window, choose the Delete unread copies of this message.
- Now click on the Ok
For New Versions of Outlook:-
- Open your outlook ( 2010, 13, 16, or 19 ). On the left side of the pane, select the Sent Items
- Now open the message that you want to retract or replace.
- Go to the Message tab on the menu bar and click on Actions.
- A drop-down menu will open and then select Recall This Message. (If you don’t see this message, you probably don’t have an Exchange Account.)
- Under the Recall This Message window, select Delete unread copies of this message.
- After this, click on the Ok
How to replace a message in Outlook?
If you missed the format of an email or forgot to add an attachment, you can use replace a message feature in Outlook. This feature allows you to add a text or file in an existing sent email. When you use this replace message feature,
the original message open for editing. Add your text or file in the message and hit on the Send button. The original message in the recipient’s mailbox will get deleted and replaced with a newly edited message. Here’s how:-
For Office 2007:-
- Open your Outlook in the navigation pane on the left side, select Sent Items.
- Now open the email that you want to replace.
- Then on the Message tab, under the Action group, select Other Actions.
- Now select Recall This Message. In the new window, select Delete unread copies and replace with a new message and check on Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient.
- Now compose the message and click on the Send
For Newer Versions:-
- Open your outlook, and select Sent Items on the left side navigation pane.
- Now open the message that you want to replace by double-clicking on it.
- Under the Message tab, click on Action.
- In the drop-down menu, select Recall This Message.
- Now select Delete unread copies and replace with a new message under Recall This Message window and check on Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient.
- Now make changes in the compose message and hit the Ok
Recall Message on Office 365
You can recall a message on Office 365 if you made any mistakes in your email. If You cannot say recalling it. You can say canceling of sending your email. If you set a time interval, you can cancel your message between that time period. Log in to your Office 365 account and follow the below steps to go further:-
- After logging in to your Office 365 account, open outlook mail.
- Now Disable Outlook Beta.
- Now at the top-right corner, select the Gear icon or Settings Click on Options in the menu.
- Click on mail to maximize, under this maximize Automatic processing.
- After that, select Let me cancel message I’ve sent for.
- Now select the time in seconds, and hit on Save
- After applying the setting, you can cancel your message for the time you’d set there.
Can I Use Outlooks Unsend feature on Android or IOS Mobile?
Unfortunately, there is no way to recall or replace an email on Android or IOS. Currently, this feature is unavailable on both Android and IOS. We are hoping by the time the developers will add this feature for both platforms. But there is one possibility that you can unsend your email by android or IOS.
For that, you need to open Outlook.com on your mobile web browser. But you can only set a time interval for that. Within that time interval, you can undo your message, not recall or retract. You can only delay sending the message. You need to set up undo send in Outlook.com. Here how you can do it:-
- At the top page, select the Gear or Settings icon.
- Click on View all settings.
- Now select Mail, and choose to Compose and reply under that.
- Under Undo send, select the time how long you want to delay your message and select Save.
- Now when you send an email, it will give you a prompt Undo send. If you want to cancel sending, select Undo.
What are the limitations when we Unsend an email?
There are some limitations to unsend an email in Outlook. You can unsend an email only when the recipient has not opened that email. If the recipient opened, then you cannot do anything for the further process of unsending an email. You can face the issue when you want to replace a message that you sent to multiple users.
Only those users will get the updated message, who didn’t open your message yet.
One more thing The unsend functionality will work only when you and the recipient have a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Exchange email account in the same organization.
You cannot recall or retract a message that’s protected by Azure Information Protection. If you are using Outlook web, then you cannot recall messages on Outlook web. So that’s it for how to unsend an email in outlook, outlook.com, for all platforms PC, android, and IOS.