Avoid That “Oh No” Moments: Quickly Undo A Sent Email or SMS

As humans, there are times we have that “oh no!” moments when we send a message to someone we shouldn’t have or make a major error when sending the messages; since we can’t delete the message from the recipient’s inbox, we are left with the aftermath. The truth is, there are so many people that suffer from this and If we had a penny for every horror story of someone who accidentally sent the wrong email…we’d need a piggy bank. (To put a smile on your faces, I selected some funny email blunders)








Anyways, don’t you ever wish for something like a CTRL + Z feature that can recall your email’s woes and errors? Well, wish no more, as the internet gods have heard your prayers and provided you with a fantastic solution.It would interest you to note that you can quickly undo a sent email or SMS with some few tricks or techniques.

Without further ado, let’s get straight to business:

1. How Can You Undo A Sent Email?

The only way you can do this is with your GMAIL account as a matter of fact, this method has been in existence for years and if you are just knowing now, good for you. There’s a feature  in the Labs section of the Settings that does the trick. Just go to your settings, head over to labs and scroll down till you see an “undo send option“. 



Once activated, anytime you send an email with your Gmail account, a yellow confirmation message appears, this is accompanied by an option to undo sending the message so it never gets to the receiver’s inbox. The option only appears for a few seconds so you’ll have to act quickly after clicking Send button

If you are using Microsoft Outlook 2010 or 2013 desktop mail client (though I doubt people use that especially in Nigeria) there’s a similar feature Gmail’s – just head to Sent Items and click the Actions menu, you should see Recall This Message as an option. Select whether you want to only delete the unread message or delete the unread message and replace it with a new one to send. voila.

2. How Can You Undo A Sent SMS?

Unfortunately, there is no setting for undoing text messages sent, however, there are things you can adopt if you are someone that is prone to errors when texting.

1. Install an app,  For iPhone users, there is an app called the Inbox, which allows you to send messages with undo capability (However you need to jailbreak your device). Android users are not left out as they would need to download an app called tiger text that enables you recall messages – though you would have to be connected to the internet to recall them.

2. If downloading apps isn’t your thing, you can use this trick, though I tried it on android, it wasn’t so successful (probably because I didn’t wait a while), however, for iPhone users this can be pulled off if you are fast enough –  Do note that for this method, you can only cancel a message while it is sending in progress.

While the message displays “Sending” in progress, you can quickly access the control center from  the bottom of the screen – immediately tap the Airplane icon to turn on AirPlane mode – this would turn off the iPhone’s cellular, wait for some seconds before turning it back on, the message should read – not delivered and you have been saved!

OTHER MAIL CLIENTS.

Sorry, no settings for you – however, when push comes to shove, you can always disconnect your WiFi or remove the internet cable.
 
In my opinion, the most effective of these tricks is the GMAIL, however with the rate at which technology is moving, it wouldn’t be so long before we see this feature being integrated in all messaging platforms, pending the time that happens you can either use these tricks or read through again and again before sending that message or mail – don’t be like this person:


Has anyone ever sent the wrong text or email?

Source: MISSTECHY