“Undo Send” is now part of Gmail
Love it or hate it, Gmail is now the world’s largest Web-based email provider With over 900,000,000 users, Gmail has passed Microsoft’s Web Mail applications (Hotmail, MSN, Live.com, and Outlook.com) and has overtaken Yahoo.com the one time Web mail leader.
Because we know that a lot of you use Gmail we’know you’ll be interesting in a new feature added to Gmail recently called Undo Send. Undo Send has been one of Google’s experimental apps and previously available only in Google labs. If you have enabled Undo Send by turning it on in Google Labs, it will remain active. But Undo Send is now part of regular Gmail and has been removed from Google Labs.
For those of you who have no idea what Undo Send is for, it’s for those times you sent an email and as soon as you’ve hit the “Send” button you wish you would not have sent it. We’ve all done that, right? I do it almost every day with EB. I write this really nice tirade of insults and click the send button. I laugh. I now I have 10, 20, or 30 seconds (depending on my settings) to undo the send and save the day. One thing you don’t EVER want to do is get on EB’s bad side the first thing in the morning. She sure as heck doesn’t used Undo Send – she lectures me, belittles me and otherwise harasses me until she feels I’ve been punished enough for sending her an email tirade. Now, with Undo Send I get all of the fun of venting and don’t have to spend any of my time repenting – nor getting verbally abused by EB.
Seriously folks, Undo Send, is like insurance against sending something you wish you wouldn’t have – and that time comes for all of us. You can enable Undo Send and set it to give you 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds to change your mind and undo sending any email. Whatever number of seconds you choose, you have that long to change your mind and undo the sending of any email.
It’s a good thing, I tells ya! Even if you’re perfect you’re going to make a mistake and send something to someone that you didn’t mean to; Gmail’s Undo Send can save the day.
How do you turn it on? Good Question!
Sign into Gmail
Click on the icon that looks like a gear (see below)
Click “Settings” (highlighted in green above)
About 1/3 of the way down, you’ll see Undo Send (see the screen shot below). Tick “Enable” and choose the number of seconds you want to have to change your mind before your email is sent. Default is 10 seconds, but you can change it to 5, 20, or 30 seconds -depending on the quickness of your thought process – KIDDING! Choose whatever number of seconds you like; the more seconds the more time you have to change your mind.
DO NOT FORGET TO SAVE YOUR SETTINGS!
Now, with Undo Send turned on, you have a way to get an errant email back before it causes embarrassment or ends a friendship or a marriage. KIDDING! You get what I mean.
Dear EB,
You are one ________ woman! You will pay what you’ve done to me. You are nothing but a ______ and a _____ and I’m sick and tired of dealing with the ________ side of you.
As far as I’m concerned you can take your _______ and _____ and take a slow train to _______.
You _______ old ______.
Your friend & partner,
TC
After I send my letter filled with vitriol, I regain my senses and decide not so send it. No problem, I simply click “Undo” after I click “Send” when I see the follow appear at the top of the Gmail windows after I clicked “Send”:
See? But you’ll only have so many seconds to click undo (depending on how many seconds you chose when you set up Undo Send…5, 10, 20, 30…. Give yourself ample time, sometimes seething doesn’t disappear in 5 seconds. Plus you don’t want to send your boss your underwear size by mistake do you?
Now as far as EB goes — I get to vent and then repent! How great is that?
TC & EB, superb; and too, so is your letter to EB. :-)) Thank you both!
Another feather in your cap! I only wish it had been on the go, years ago:-)
I am really writing to ask a question. I have been with you for many years; I’ve had you clean up my mess directly. At one point you advised an upgrade or a new computer, since I am still using XL3 – – -which I love dearly. My family all use “Apple” products and they have talked me into getting one. I already had a ipad2, so, just the week before last I bought a new Desk Top Apple 21.5″. I have already paid for a new ‘Emisoft’ which will start when my old one runs out.
What I would like to know………..do you deal with ‘Apple’ – – I mean, give advice the way you do with PCs?
Will my Emisoft be compatible with ‘Apple’?
As I have said, I have been with you for many years now and I would like to thank you for the work you do, and have done for decades. I am loathe to part with my PC, and I’m wondering why I was talked into it. Perhaps once I get used to the new-fangled way it works I may come to like it.
Sincerely,
Raymond McCrudden (Scotland)
Hi Ray,
We don’t fix Apple computers – according to Apple lovers, Apple computers don’t need repair. Not true of course, they break down and have problems like everything else in this world. Apple has one thing Microsoft, and even Google, doesn’t have. A corp of fanatic followers who would buy a silver-plated lump of coal for $200 if it had the Apple Logo on it. Like Starbucks and other companies that charge too much for their products and get away with it because of a fanatic cadre of customers and the aura of “cool” image, Apple can do almost anything it wants and be successful. It wasn’t always this way. In the 1990’s, Apple was almost bankrupt, and had it not been for financial help from Bill Gates and Microsoft and the return of Steve Jobs, Apple may have been another Studebaker.
Don’t get me wrong… Apple makes great computers and tablets, there’s no doubt. But those who are considering Apple over Windows 10 will have a lot higher learning curve than those going from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Those who are retiring their Windows XP computers soon and considering an Apple computer because they’re angry with Microsoft for all is blunders, will face a gigantic learning curve – a bigger learning curve than if they moved to a new Windows 10 computer.
Additionally, there are millions of free programs for Windows; there are is only a fraction of that for Apple computers. For Windows users there’s a free program for almost everything; Apple users will find a much smaller selection (although their are more freeware programs for Apple now then there were 5 or 6 years ago).
Emsisoft works with Windows. Emsisoft does not work with Apple computers. Emsisoft does have a version for Android-based tablets.
We have one Apple computer, and we’re not at all impressed. And heaven knows, we’re not Microsoft fanatics. I’ve been known to say some rather unkind things about Microsoft.
I think Microsoft FINALLY got it right with Windows 10. I think it’s the best Microsoft has done since Windows XP. And it’s the last named version of Windows – which means once you get used to Windows 10 you won’t have to learn a whole new version of Windows ever again. Windows 10 will have updates and service packs, but from what Microsoft said, there will never be a Windows 11, Windows 12, Windows 13 etc.
I think you’ll get used to Apple, but I think you’re going to miss Windows a lot. And, sorry to say, we’re going to miss you – there won’t be much here you can use on an Apple computer.
Thank you so much for your kind words – and for all your support over the years.
OK, T C, I send a message and then decide to UNDO SEND, what key do I hit to stop the send.
Thanks for your question – I’m sure many will ask the same thing so now I’ve added an other image to the post (near the bottom) to show you what to click to undo the sending of any email.
Undo Send is a very worthwhile addition to Gmail………provided, of course, the 30-second “oops” time is enough.
I don’t think I will ever use it, though. When I compose an email I don’t fill in the “To” field until I’m sure my message is the way I want it to be. So, many of my messages stay in the “draft” folder until I’m REALLY ready to “send” it. I’d much prefer resurrection of the “outbox” with the ability of “sending” at MY choice of time.
Re the email market share……….if Microsoft gave a hoot, they would resurrect Outlook Express, or even Windows Mail, the best email programs in the world. I would even BUY it if they made it available and supported it. They’ve even made Outlook a disaster.
I seem to recall a feature many years ago when using Outlook, that you could recall a sent message, as long as the recipient had not opened it.