We have all been there. You click “send” on an email in Outlook and moments later regret when you realize you have made a serious or embarrassing error in the content or, that you have sent the email to a wrong recipient.
If you are using Outlook with an Exchange account, all is not lost, you can recall an email provided several other factors are in your favor.
How to Recall a Message in Outlook – Instructions
- Go to your sent items folder.
- Open the message you want to recall.
- In the ribbon, ensure the Message tab is selected.
- Click Actions in the move group and from the dropdown, select Recall This Message.
- A new window will open up allowing to decide how you want the recall handled. The options include:
- Delete unread copies of the message – this completely removes the email from the recipient’s inbox.
- Delete unread copies and replace with a new message – the replaces the original email with another
- Also, you can tick:
- Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient – This lets know the result of the recall attempt via email.
- Click OK to recall the message.
- A request is then sent to the recipient’s email; address, asking the email client to make the amendments requested.
Requirements for Outlook Email Recall Success
- You and the recipient must be using Microsoft Exchange email accounts on the same server.
Tips and Warnings
- This does not work on emails sent outside the exchange server, for example, to a Gmail or Yahoo account.
- There is no guarantee of success even if you are on the same Exchange server. If the email has already been read, the recall won’t succeed.
- This does not work if the recipient is viewing emails using a different program other than outlook, for example, an Outlook web application or mobile application.
- As an alternative to recall, you can instead choose to delay emails. This is possible by going to Rules and Alerts in your File Tab. Set a New rule in the E-mail rules tab to defer the delivery of an email by a number of minutes.
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