Yikes! I Didn’t Mean to Send That Email. How Do I Get It Back?

What’s more, the feature does not work on a Mac.​

Double-click the message you want to recall in the Sent Items folder in the pane on the left of an Outlook window.

If you’re on a PC with the Classic Ribbon, select the Message tab | Actions | Recall This Message.

If you’re using what is referred to as the Simplified Ribbon instead, select the Message tab | More commands (…) and under Actions click Recall This Message.

In the Recall This Message window, choose either Delete unread copies of this message or Delete unread copies and replace with a new message. If you choose the latter, compose the new message and hit Send.

Check the Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient with a new message box for a status report. If a recipient is quick to click, you’re out of luck.

An alternative: After double-clicking a message you want to recall, click File | Resend and Recall | Recall This Message.

The method differs slightly if you’re using the new version of Outlook. After selecting Sent Items and choosing a message to recall, select Recall Message from the ribbon, then OK.

If you don’t see the Recall This Message option, you either don’t have an Exchange account or your company doesn’t offer the feature, according to Microsoft.

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By default, Apple’s Mail app gives 10 seconds to undo

After sending an email on iPhone or iPad, tap Undo Send that appears below a list of emails in your Mail inbox. On a Mac, click Undo Send, which appears at the bottom of the sidebar to the left of the inbox.

By default, you have up to 10 seconds to recall a message, though you can change the delay. On iPhone, tap Settings ⚙️ | Apps | ✉️ Mail | Undo Send Delay and tap 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds or Off.

On Mac, launch the Mail app and click Preferences or Settings depending on the version of MacOS you’re using, under the Mail menu. Click the Composing tab and under Sending, select Undo Send Delay. From the drop-down, again choose among 10, 20, 30 seconds or Off. If you don’t see the option, as with Microsoft Outlook, your version of the operating system doesn’t offer the feature.

Unsend an iMessage, but only to certain Apple devices

Apple will let you unsend an iMessage on an iPhone, iPad, Mac and even the Vision Pro headset.

Inside the Messages app on iPhone or iPad, touch and press down on the messages bubble, then tap Undo Send. A “You unsent a message” note appears under the message you discarded. The recipient will get a note that a message was discarded but won’t see the contents of the discarded message.

On a Mac, you can get to Undo Send by control-clicking on the message bubble.

You only have up to 20 seconds to unsend an iMessage after you send it, and you can only unsend it to recipients running iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura or later who also use iMessage.

You can't recall messages sent in other text messaging protocols, including short message service (SMS) texts or rich communication services (RCS). Such messages will appear in the Messages app in green bubbles rather than blue.

Apple will let you edit a recently sent message up to five times within 15 minutes of sending it. Touch and hold the messages bubble on an iPhone or iPad — or control-click on a Mac — and tap Edit. Make your changes and tap the checkmark ✓‧inside a blue circle.

These messages are altered but not gone altogether. It means that either you or the recipient can tap Edited to see the pre-edited version of the message.

Related:

• How to Delay Sending a Text Message
• 13 Things You Should (Almost) Never Put in a Text
• Take Your Texts Beyond Emojis With These Tricks

Bonus tip: Avoid sending emails to the wrong recipient

Sending email inadvertently to the wrong person is bad enough. A sensitive email meant for a colleague going to someone outside the organization could be really bad news.

To reduce the likelihood, Apple’s Mail app has a feature called Mark Addresses that can have any email sent to or from outside your company’s domain appear in red to flag a potential error.

On iPhone go to Settings ⚙️ | Apps | ✉️ Mail. Scroll down and tap Mark Addresses, found under Composing. In the Mark Addresses Not Ending With space provided, enter your organization’s domain, like aarp.org, and any others you don’t want marked in red, separated by commas.

From here on, you may see a lot of red, but not as much red as on your face if the wrong message ends up in the wrong hands.