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Category: Technology Author : JR Posted: March 20, 2009
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Gmail ‘Undo Send’: Is This Really Useful at All?


Gmail unveiled a new “Undo Send” feature in its Labs menu this week. When I saw the announcement about it yesterday, I quickly shrugged and moved on. I’ve since been surprised to see how much glowing coverage the feature has inspired across the blogosphere.

“Undo Send” is great in theory: Once you activate it, Gmail adds an option onto the sent mail confirmation screen that lets you grab back a message before it goes out. We’ve all hit “send” and then realized we messed something up, right? So wouldn’t that addition be a nice way to backtrack?

Gmail Undo Send

Of course. But Gmail’s “Undo Send” gives you only five seconds to hit the panic button and reclaim the e-mail. I don’t know about you, but my odds of catching a post-send error in five seconds aren’t high.

If Gmail wants to give you an option to grab back a message, it needs to increase the delay by a bit more than that. I’d say 30 seconds would be the minimum for the feature to have any use whatsoever. People who want their e-mails sent instantly can leave the option off, but if you enable an “Undo Send” feature, you presumably accept the slight delay that comes with it.

“Undo Send” is a good idea, but I struggle to see how often it’ll prove useful in its current incarnation.

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Comments


7 Archived Responses to “ Gmail ‘Undo Send’: Is This Really Useful at All? ”

  1. Arun
    Mar 20, 2009

    u may be right but sometimes it happens that u r talking to somebody on phone saying that i am sending a mail right away…. please check and let me know the answer without hanging up…
    for a situation like this, a 30 second wait cud be annoying… so maybe they put another link alongside the “undo send” link that says “send it right away” or something???

  2. Matt
    Mar 24, 2009

    I have Gmail and think it's superior to all other free email clients for many reasons. However, let's face it, Gmail lags. Even without the “Undo Send.” I think the real idea here was to turn the weakness of the product into a strength, which in my opinion is a pretty smart move. But I understand what you're saying, functionally… eh.

  3. Michael
    Apr 20, 2009

    Personally I think it would be more useful if you could hit undo send anytime before it is opened and be able to remove it. Of course, this wouldn't work in general, but I think it might be possible between two gmail users if Google set it up that way.

  4. Alex
    Apr 21, 2009

    Although what the author says may be true for him, it is not the case for a lot of people. For instance, it is very often that I realize a mistake just a moment after making it. Like realizing you forgot your keys the moment the door closes behind you, I feel a 5 second safe-zone will catch a lot of the mistakes without resulting in a significant delay.

  5. Matazar
    Apr 22, 2009

    This would have been a better idea. While they can't enforce this through other mail servers, they could do it within gmail itself.

  6. kevin
    May 4, 2009

    at one time…when america online was huge and people had fewer internet email choices… aol had an “unsend” button… it only worked when your mail was on aol servers…. to other aol customers. may i say…… many is the time i whipped off an angry or hasty email and was very happy that i could unsend it before it was received. all right up until the moment it was opened by the recipient. its a wonderful option.


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