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Undo Sending an Email

by Google Tips

Posted on December 2, 2016

Have you ever written an email and just as you click "Send" you realize that you made an error in the message? Or perhaps you got a little hasty and fired off an email, only to regret it the second it zips off into cyberspace? No? Good for you. Sadly, I make mistakes in my messages all the time.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to "Unsend" that email? You guessed it... since we switched to G Suite for Education (new name for Google Apps for Education) there is a way to retract that flaming arrow before it starts an apocalypse. You have to be quick about it, but you can get it back. Here's how:

First, turn on Undo Send. This has to be enabled before you compose and send the errant script.

  1. On your computer, open Gmail.
  2. In the top right, click Settings.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. In the "Undo Send" section, check the box next to "Enable Undo Send."
  5. In the "Send cancellation period" section, set the amount of time you want to decide if you want to unsend an email.
  6. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

After you turn on Undo Send, you can cancel sending an email.

  1. After you send a message, you'll see the message "Your message has been sent" and the option to Undo or View message.
  2. Click Undo.

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Here are a few that might help:

This is the "Settings" icon under your account avatar (step two in turn on undo send):

When you click the Settings disclosure triangle, you can select "Settings" (step three in turn on undo send)

Toward the top of the Settings options you will find "Undo Send" which you will need to enable by checking the box and number of seconds option (steps four and five in turn on undo send).

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Be sure to "Save Changes" at the bottom of this page (step six in turn on undo send). ​

After you have sent a message, you have a few seconds to click on "Undo" just above the sent message (steps one and two in cancel sending an email).


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​And that's how you "undo" sending an email with G Suite. Pretty slick if you ask me.