Ouch! Accidentally sent? 5 steps to undo send in Gmail

Consider this situation – An all important mail that you have to send to your boss. You write a carefully worded email, hit the send button, and then ouch! You suddenly remember that you forgot to attach the file that you thought had to send with the message! Or maybe you wrote an email when you were angry and now you’re having second thoughts, but the email has been sent, and now it can’t be remedied, right? Wrong. Google has come up with a contingency “Undo Send” setting for situations just like these. With this option, you can stop the email you have sent, then edit and resend the email and breathe a sigh of relief.

So here are the 5 steps to enable undo send in Gmail. Though keep in mind that the undo send setting is a Google Lab feature at the moment, and so it could have a few kinks. But don’t let that keep you from using it, as Google usually irons out kinks in quick time.

Step 1

Go to the Setting option that is on the right hand top corner of your Gmail page. Click on it, and the Setting window will open. On top, there are some options you can choose from. Go to the Labs option. Once on the Labs page, you will see a list of in development features that Google has released. These features are pretty useful, and are generally designed to improve your Gmail experience. The Undo Send option will be almost at the bottom of the page. Scroll down and enable it, and click the save changes button at the bottom.

Step 2

Now that the Undo Send feature has been enabled, you need to customize the duration. The default is set at 10 seconds, but realistically this is just not enough time, at least for someone who isn’t Einstein. You should probably set the duration on 30 seconds, which is the maximum. You need to click the Settings option, then you will find the customize Undo Send duration under the General tab. Save changes, and it’s done.

Step 3

Now, to try out the Undo Send feature, you should write an email. Send the email to someone, and then proceed to the next step.

Step 4

As soon as the email has been sent, you get the usual yellow strip on top, which bears the usual options like “View message”. Next to this, you will find a new option, which is the “Undo” option. This option stays visible for the period you set the duration to, and then vanishes.

Step 5

Click the “Undo” option, and the sending will be cancelled. You email is now available for you as a draft, and you can edit the message, attach new files or compose an email altogether.

The Undo Send option is not a new feature, it has been around for a while, but Google has increased the “Undo” time limit to 30 seconds from the old 5-10 seconds allotment. This feature is a real life saver, and it is highly recommended that you enable it.