gmail is an email service offered by google that has gradually become one of the essential parts of our working lives. allows you to share documents, send messages and other important data without limit for most users. From critical business documents to school assignments, you can send anything using gmail.
However, there are times when you click send on an email and instantly regret it. maybe you sent an email to the wrong email address or forgot to attach a file to your email. you may want to retrieve your email to correct errors in these cases.
but can you unsend an email in gmail?
yes, you can. gmail provides a feature that allows you to retrieve a sent email within 30 seconds for those users. In this article, we have a detailed guide for you on how to recover email in gmail.
how to retrieve a message in gmail
Unfortunately, by default, the gmail email recovery feature is not active to a usable degree. so to recover gmail messages you need to enable this option in settings. here are ways you can do this on desktop and mobile. outlook remembers better, but only within a company server.
enable “undo send” in gmail desktop
here’s how to retrieve an email in gmail with the undo send option in your gmail web client:
step 1: open settings
- click the gear icon at the top right of the screen. you’ll see a sidebar appear.
- click view all settings here. this will take you to the settings page which contains all the gmail settings.
step 2: configure email opt-out period in gmail
- click general to go to that tab.
- scroll down to find undo send. Clicking on the box will display a dropdown menu that allows you to choose a duration. this includes intervals of five, ten, twenty and thirty seconds. choose the option that best suits you.
step 3: save changes
once you’ve made your choice, scroll down and click save changes
Now whenever you press send on an email, a confirmation box will appear at the bottom left of the screen with two buttons. clicking undo allows you to stop sending the message, while view message will allow you to view the email you sent. Please note that clicking view message will not prevent the email from being sent.
clicking undo in the selected time period means the recipient won’t know you sent the email. It can be a lifesaver if you send a confidential email to the wrong person.
undo send in mobile gmail
The process for unsending an email in mobile gmail is similar to what we discussed for the web and desktop versions. it is often enabled by default on your mobile device. When you send an email using the Gmail mobile app, a pop-up box appears at the bottom of the screen telling you that the email was sent successfully. here is a picture showing how to recover email from gmail on android device.
if you want to recover the email, click undo on the right side of that popup. this button should take you back to the email compose screen, where you can make changes to the email or discard it altogether.
enable confirm before send in android
- open gmail on your mobile device and open the menu button on the top right
- navigate to settings > general settings
- scroll down and make sure confirm before sending is checked
why the recovery function is not ideal
this function in gmail doesn’t really remember your email. instead, it just adds a delay timer that allows you to undo your email if you realize you made a mistake at the last second. if you don’t click undo during this time, the email is sent and there is no way to recover it.
If you exit the email screen while this popup is displayed, the option will disappear completely and you will have no other option to retrieve your email.
This method is not the perfect solution for retracting emails, so we recommend being vigilant when writing them, reviewing them, and making sure they are sent to the correct email address. however, it is a bit difficult to send emails automatically in gmail.
some reasons why people want to recover gmail emails
- sorry writing while angry
- forgotten attachments
- sent to wrong recipient
- forget to cc important admin
- the issue discussed in the email has been resolved
alternatives to gmail message recovery feature (a better gmail email recovery option)
So far, we’ve established that this feature has extremely limited use and not everyone will use it simply because you can’t retrieve emails after 30 seconds. sometimes you want to send something sensitive or something you only want to give the recipient limited access to.
There is no way to do this in the gmail web or mobile client. however, you can achieve this using google docs.
open a new document in google docs and write your message there as you normally would. When you finish writing your message, click the blue share button at the top right of the screen. just type the recipient’s email here and you can send a document as an email.
This offers the advantage that you can make changes to the document at any time, which will be reflected immediately. this also works for retrieving emails from google sheets.
how to recover an email from gmail – frequently asked questions
can you unsend an email in gmail? / can gmail retrieve emails?
If you find that you don’t want to send an email you just sent, gmail, by default, provides a 5-second window in which you can retrieve and edit your email. You can increase the timer for this window to 30 seconds by going to the general settings and going to the undo send option. this is the closest you will get to a gmail email recovery option.
how do i remember an email after 30 minutes in gmail?
the gmail message recovery option only has a delay of up to 30 seconds. after that the email is sent and there is no way to get it back. gmail does not remember your messages. instead, it puts a short delay between sending your emails.
how long do you have to remember an email in gmail?
by default, gmail has a 5 second delay to retrieve your emails. this can be increased up to 30 seconds by heading into settings. however, there is no way to cancel sending the email after this time has elapsed.
can i cancel sending an email in gmail after 10 minutes?
The undo send function only delays the sending of your emails. you can’t unsend an email after the 30-second delay has passed. gmail has no option to retrieve an email. outlook can be more forgiving, but only for internal company emails.
can you remember an email in gmail after a day?
no, unfortunately you can’t retrieve a sent email in gmail after a day as the undo send function has a maximum delay of 30 seconds.
retrieve an email in gmail
gmail is a fantastic email messaging platform with tons of features to make it easy for users to use. the send undo option is one of them.
Although it’s far from perfect, it can be a lifesaver for many people, as it can be very frustrating when you click submit and realize you forgot to add a little detail. this feature allows you to avoid such problems.
We hope this article has helped you learn more about how to recover email in gmail and how you can use it to make your life easier. If you want to learn more about how to improve your gmail game, check out our list of gmail tricks.
related articles:
- how to sign out of mail on iphone
- how to retrieve email in outlook
- how to sync outlook calendar with iphone