Recall Email Sent Through Outlook For Mac

I received an interesting message which I wanted to read later so I’ve let it Unread but now it is gone.

I’ve found out that it was recalled by the sender but I don’t think it should have been for reasons I won’t go into here.

Nov 14, 2017  Gmail had introduced an interesting featured called “Undo Send” which would recall a sent email.The user has up to 30 seconds to use this feature. After that, the email is sent permanently to the receiver. Microsoft Outlook has a similar feature of recalling an already sent email which can be very useful in some circumstances.

Is there any way I can still get this message back?

Ah, the “Recall This Message” feature… It’s been the topic of many endless corporate discussions about to what extent it is legally allowed to have this feature and how to handle it.

Laws are different in every country so I’ll just stick to a small disclaimer about the feature itself and then show you how you can still get back the recalled message.

Disclaimer: Recall This Message comes without warranty.

The Recall This Message feature isn’t a perfect cover-up and neither was it intended to be.

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It is basically just a helpful end-user tool to mask some honest mistakes under the right circumstances. Under the wrong circumstances, it can have the opposite effect as discussed in; Recall a sent message (and why it will probably fail).

In all cases, it leaves a trace!

If you need something that works reliably, there are Exchange level features such as In-Place eDiscovery (Compliance Search) to really clean up a messy situation. This however requires you to talk to your Exchange administrator and/or Compliance Officer as these aren’t end-user features.

Recover the Recalled message

The Recall feature only works within an Exchange environment and even then there are restrictions to whether it will work or not.

In this case, it worked and this is what happened in the background in a simplified representation;

1. A special recall message was sent by the sender of the message to find and delete (or replace) the original message in the mailbox of the recipient.
2. The original message was found in the mailbox of the recipient and was hard deleted (skips the Deleted Items folder), as well as the special recall message itself.

Under the perfect circumstances, the recipient of the message never noticed that this message was received and neither that is has been deleted shortly thereafter.

However, since the message was (briefly) stored within the mailbox and then hard deleted, it would still show up when using the Recover Deleted Items feature;

• Outlook 2016 / 2019 / Office 365
  Select the Deleted Items folder-> use the link at the top; Recover items recently removed from this folder
• Outlook 2007 / 2010 / 2013 / 2016 (msi-install)
  tab: Folder-> button: Recover Deleted Items

You’ll now see a dialog with all the Outlook items that have recently been deleted from your mailbox but are still in the Retention Period set for your mailbox. How long this Retention Period is, depends on the chosen settings of your company, but for Office 365 Exchange Online the default is 14 days.

In this dialog, you should see the special Recall message as well as the original message itself. Select the original message, verify that the Restore Selected Items option is selected and press the OK.

The message will be restored either to the Deleted Items folder or the folder that the message was deleted from. Due to synching delays, it may take a minute for it to show up.

Important! Prevent notifying the sender

As you’ve now recovered the message, the recall has actually failed and the sender will receive a Recall Failed notification even when he/she first received the Recall Success notification.

If you don’t want this to happen, select the special Recall message first, select the option “Purge Selected Items” and press OK. You can now recover the original recalled message without notifying the original sender so it will still show that the recall was successful for them.

greater than 4 minutes

Knowing how to recall an email in Microsoft Outlook is vital if you work in an office. You never want to send an email full of embarrassing mistakes, especially to your seniors. That can make you look incompetent, and even make your manager question why he or she hired you.

Even seniors would never want to ruin their reputations by unintentionally hitting “Send” or “Reply all” on the wrong message. Enduring the ridicule and shame is something no one ever wants to go through.

Fortunately, many email clients/ email services provide the functionality to recall emails. Yes, even after you’ve sent the email.

MS Outlook for Windows is one such email client with this valuable feature. Here’s how you can use the feature to save both your face and job.

Step-by-Step Guide to Recall Emails in Outlook

Recalling emails in Outlook is pretty straightforward.

Follow these steps, and you’ll see how to recall an email in Outlook:

1. Look for the message that you want to recall by opening the Sent Items folder. Being a recently sent email, it is at the top of the list.
2. Double-click on the email, and it will open up.
3. Ensure you’re in the Message tab (check the top of your window).
4. Now locate the drop-down menu labeled, ‘Actions.’ You’ll find this next to the email options, ‘Rules’ and ‘Move’ on your taskbar.
5. Now, to recall the message, click on Actions. Then click on Recall This Message.

Note that these options are only available if you have an Exchange account. In certain organizations, the options may actually be blocked by your administrators.

To complete the operation, proceed by following these steps:

1. You’ll get a recall window.
2. Here, you’ll get two options: deleting unread copies of your email or replacing it with a more appropriate message.
3. The functionality provides an option that reports on successful or failed recall of the email for individual recipients.Select your preferences before clicking OK.

If your selection was to delete the message, the process is complete, and you’ve successfully saved yourself from a potentially embarrassing situation.

If your selection was to replace the message, proceed with the following steps:

1. After selecting the replacement message option, you’ll get a new screen to compose your new message.
2. When you’re ready, select ‘Send,’ and the recall process will start.

Keep in mind that your old email doesn’t disappear just by you sending the recall message.

So, what should be done to make the old message disappear? Well, the recipients should open your recall message first before opening the email you don’t want them to see. Only then will the wrong email disappear. That’s what happens when you recall emails by sending a replacement message.

A nifty little trick to get recipients to open your recall message first is titling your recall message “URGENT.” This should motivate recipients to open it as quickly as possible.

Why Email Recall Doesn’t Always Work

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Unfortunately, the email recall process may not work correctly.

Considering the super-fast Internet speeds we currently have, an email sent in error will land on someone’s inbox within seconds. If the recipient is sitting at his desk with the email client open, he will likely see and open it faster than you can recall it.

And that’s not the only problem

Several other factors can complicate things, including:

• Any opened email cannot be recalled. However, the recipient will receive your recall email, making him aware that you didn’t intend to send the wrong email.
• The recipient may have specific filters that reroute received emails into other folders besides the inbox folder. That makes recall impossible since it only works if the email is in the recipient’s inbox.
• Emails sent to public folders have a higher risk of being seen by everyone and a lower chance of being recalled. It doesn’t need everyone to see the email for it to be impossible to recall. Just one recipient tagging it as read will make it impossible to recall.
• This Outlook recall feature won’t work on emails sent to other email clients, like Gmail. It only works for emails sent within Outlook. Therefore, you’ll probably want to restrict communication within Outlook to be safe.
• The functionality will be problematic when dealing with different versions of Outlook. This is the case if you’re using Outlook on mobile devices with the Exchange ActiveSync settings. And it gets even worse if your mobile phone is offline.
• If your PC has performance issues, it will be sluggish. Your computer might be unresponsive for a while, making it difficult to recall an email quickly. Hence, you should tune up your PC for peak performance, using a useful tool like Auslogics BoostSpeed.

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What if email recall doesn’t work? Is there anything else that will help?

You certainly have one more option left: write a sincere apology. The people on the other side are more likely to understand your predicament and not to take offense.

Better still, you can take precautionary measures to avoid such a scenario in the future.

The best precaution is to double-check our emails before sending them. Never be in a rush to send even urgent messages. Read them twice or thrice over.

And if you feel you need an even more full-proof precautionary measure, you can set your emails to delay when sending. To apply these settings, follow these steps:

1. Go to File.
2. Select Manage Rules and Alerts.
3. Choose New Rule.
4. Skip conditions and start from Blank Rule. This ensures you cover all emails.
5. Now, select Defer Delivery by a Number of Minutes.

If your emails delay by a few minutes, you’ll have ample time to reconsider sending them. And it will likely give you enough time to recall the ones you sent.

You now know how to recall your emails and what to do to avoid the situation in future.

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