To unsend an email in Outlook, you can use the "Recall Email" feature if you meet certain conditions (e.g., both sender and recipient are using Microsoft 365 or Exchange within the same organization). Here are the steps:
- Open Outlook and go to your Sent Items folder.
- Double-click the email you want to recall to open it in a new window.
- Click the Message tab on the ribbon.
- Select Actions (or More Actions) and then click Recall This Message.
- In the pop-up window, choose one of the options:
- Delete unread copies of this message to simply recall the email.
- Delete unread copies and replace with a new message if you want to send a corrected version.
- Optionally, check the box to be notified if the recall succeeds or fails.
- Click OK to confirm.
If the recipient has already read the email, the recall will fail, and you will be notified
. Additional notes:
- The recall feature only works reliably if both sender and recipient are on the same Exchange or Microsoft 365 server/organization.
- If the recipient uses a different email client or is outside your organization, recall may not work.
- For Outlook on the web (Outlook.com), you can enable an "Undo Send" feature that delays sending your email by a few seconds (up to 10 seconds), allowing you to cancel sending immediately after hitting send
- If recall is not possible, you may need to contact the recipient to request deletion of the email manually
In summary, Outlook's recall feature allows you to unsend an email under specific conditions, primarily within the same organization and before the recipient reads it. For immediate undo after sending, Outlook.com offers a short delay undo option. Otherwise, recall is not guaranteed outside these scenarios.
