Email Sent to the Wrong Person? New Gmail Feature Lets You 'Undo Send'

Google announced that a new feature, called “Undo Send,” is now available for Gmail users.

The company stated that they are officially adding “Undo Send” as a formal setting in Gmail. The new feature lets users cancel a sent mail via Gmail if they decide not to forward it a few seconds after sending. The feature can also be turned off by default for people who are not using the Labs version in the meantime. Users can also enable the feature via the General tab in Gmail settings.

USA Today reported that the feature will delay sending an email for five to 30 seconds for people having second thoughts. The feature has actually been in beta mode since 2009 on Google Labs tab. Google Labs presents various features that users can explore before Google officially releases these. Google also provides a warning to users going to the Gmail Labs tab to be careful about experimental features since these can change, break or disappear anytime. There were previous reports of some users trying the “Undo Send” feature via the Gmail Labs tab before it was officially released.

The “Undo Send” feature was launched with Google’s new Inbox version in May 2015. This means that it took six years before Google finally decided to make the feature available for all its users. Gmail users will have to activate the feature on their own, since Google will not make it available automatically.

Wired.com provided instructions on how to use the new feature. Users must first go to the “Settings” pane in the menu right below their profile image. They will find an option to “Enable Undo Send” as well as drop-down that will let them customize the cancellation period for the feature. The available options are five, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. The “Undo Send” will be useful for people who wish to quickly review their work or check for possible errors before having the supposed recipient read it.

The “Undo Send”, however, can only be done on the web and not on mobile devices. Holding off an email will only last for 30 seconds.

Gmail is the number one email service on the internet with 900 million people users worldwide. The new feature is expected to help users gain more control over their emails. Gmail competitors like Yahoo and Hotmail have not yet confirmed whether they will also be launching a similar trait soon.