In June this year Gmail activated a function called Undo Send. If you make a typo or regret sending a message, you can undo the action by enabling Undo send. This setting gives you the option to take back a message you just sent.

To enable Undo Send:

1. Click the gear in the top right .
2. Select Settings.
3. Scroll down to Undo Send and click Enable.
4. Set the cancellation period (the amount of time you have to decide if you want to unsend an email).
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

If you had Undo Send turned on in Gmail Labs, your Undo Send setting will be on by default.

To give you time to undo, Gmail delays sending the message for a few seconds. Under the Undo Send function you can also set the cancellation period to 1, 3 or 20 seconds.  Once that window of time passes the email is sent normally and cannot be undone as it is already transferred from your mail server to the recipient’s mail server. If you don’t select Undo within the time limit, your message will be sent.

Just take note that Undo send may not work if you experience connection issues.

For all the Outlook users out there, don’t despair. Outlook also has a function to recall messages. Just as with Gmail there are also limitations as to what you can do with the recall function. The success or failure of a recall depends on the recipients’ settings in Microsoft Outlook.

For example, if the message has already been read by the recipient, it will not be recalled. If it has been delivered, both the new and old message will be in the recipient’s mailbox. However, the recipient will be informed that you, the sender, deleted the message from his or her mailbox.

For full instructions on how to use Outlook’s recall function, click here.

[SOURCE: www.howtogeek.com]