Have you ever accidentally sent an email and wished you could take it back? I know I have and, thanks to Gmail I can now “undo send” any email, within 10 seconds of originally sending it.

After spending a very long time as a “beta” feature, Google has just announced that the “undo send” feature now has a permanent spot in their feature list. This means that once enabled, you can “unsend” an email up to ten seconds after hitting the send button. This delay gives you a chance to change your mind, or to rectify an error. This is a little feature I’ve been using for years now, but only recently has Google officially launched it to all of their gmail users.

How to Turn it On

If you don’t already use Gmail as your email provider, I would highly suggest migrating over as this is just one of many amazing features, another being the use of Google+ from an SEO perspective.

So, how do you turn it on? Once in your Gmail account, follow the below steps;

  1. Click on the “cog” icon on the top right hand side of your inbox and click on settings
  2. Go to the 10th option under the “general settings”
  3. Here is where you will see the “undo send” option. If not already enabled, tick the box and chose the time you would like to have with your “undo send” option.
  4. Once chosen, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “save changes”.

When this feature originally launched in 2009, the deal time allowed for emails was five seconds. After being upgraded to a permanent feature, users can now chose to hold their emails for 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds.

If this is the first time you are hearing about this feature, you need to make sure you are more in the know. You can do this by opting in to public betas for services straight from Google Labs. The “undo send” feature was one of the most popular however, there are some other great features. To see which are available, follow the below steps once inside of Gmail;

  1. Click on the “cog” icon on the top right hand side of your inbox and click on settings
  2. Click on the “labs” option tab
  3. Choose which labs you want to turn on by clicking the “enable” button.
  4. Once chosen, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “save changes”.

The “undo send” feature is currently not available on Mobile however, Google have said it is something they will focus on in the near future.

Have you enabled the Gmail’s ‘undo send’ feature on your inbox?

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