Delay sending email for a few minutes

[Al Sargent]

The idea: provide an option to delay transmission for email for a few
minutes after you hit "Send". After pressing send, a message is tagged
as "Outbox". After a few minutes the message is sent, the Outbox tag,
er label, is removed, and the Sent tag is added.

The goal: if you need to make a last-minute change to an email, you
can do so. If you've been overly harsh in an email, you can rectify
the mistake before it's too late. If you get updated information, you
can add it into the original email. For most emails, it doesn't matter
that transmission is delayed by a few minutes.

This isn't just my idea. I read about it here:
http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/a-cautionary-tale-watch-the-email.html
Others have suggested this as well -- here's just one example:
http://blogs.technet.com/jareda/archive/2004/11/06/253333.aspx

Refinements:

1. Let users tweak the exact delay. The default value could be five
minutes.

2. There should be an Outbox view, similar in concept to the Sent Mail
view. In this Outbox view, there should be a "Send Now" button, which
overrides the transmission delay.

[Michael Hackett]

On Jun 11, 5:02 am, Al Sargent wrote:
> The idea: provide an option to delay transmission for email for a few
> minutes after you hit "Send". After pressing send, a message is tagged
> as "Outbox". After a few minutes the message is sent, the Outbox tag,
> er label, is removed, and the Sent tag is added.

I whole-heartedly second this request! In my case, I would like it
because I have, on several occasions, sent an incomplete message
because my fingers hit the wrong key combination. (My searches show
that I'm certainly not the first. e.g.
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Composing-Messages-en/browse_thread/thread/cb9d68a37ce111a3)

The much beloved Claris Emailer had this feature many years ago, and
it would be great to have it back in GMail. A "Send Later" button
wouldn't cut it, as you can always still accidently hit the wrong one.
You have to be able to have all outgoing mail go to this Outbox. And
then, as Al describes, you choose when the Outbox should be cleared --
after so many minutes, or only when you manually execute the send
command. I would like to have the option to always have to go to the
Outbox view, have a last look, and choose "Send Now". And there should
be a way to send all waiting messages with one click, in that view.

I can't see that this would be too hard to implement. All the pieces
are there. We just need a small change to Compose to have a Send that
goes through an outbox rather than sending immediately. It should
probably be an opt-in feature, as many people expect email to be
virtually instant, although I suspect almost everybody has at one time
or another wished they could undo clicking that "Send" button.

[gosay]

Hi, I Always wanted to send Dated, Timed Mails to people. I really
wish Gmail will come up with Scheduled mailing facilities.

[Dan1234]

Here here! I have to put my vote here, for me, this is the number 1
problem / liability with with GMAIL for business applications-- the
requirement on many users to do huge volumes of email daily can result
in many errors that a customizable delay setting could really help.
I've also had a few instances where I've accidentally hit the "tab"
key and return and therefore sent an unfinished message. I'm sure many
GMAIL users are forced to make the same kinds of work-arounds as I
have: delete all receipients while composing a message OR compose in a
3rd party word processor. For many business users, this feature in
Outlook is so important that it has prevented them from making the
switch to GMAIL. For us nervous information workers, this added bit of
stress can be a dealbreaker! I can't stress enough how wonderful this
add on would be to GMAIL, and I'm sure the adoption rate from GMAIL
users would be significant.
Thanks for your time!
Dan

On Jun 26, 11:47 pm, gosay wrote:
> Hi, I Always wanted tosendDated, Timed Mails to people. I really

[GMS]

I think instead of delay it could be a simple confirm button, with an
ability to choose an option to disable it (for users who might not
like it). I also think that if you can assign a time and date for a
message to be sent. For example, lets say I had a business project to
be sent at Monday but today is Saturday and I am done with the
project, instead of waiting till Monday comes, why can't I make it to
be sent automatically exactly the time I want!
Thanks

[natgeo]

This is exactly what I want! :D I also really like the proposed
implementation, where the Outbox would be unobtrusive to users who do
not pay attention or do not want to know about the feature, but it is
there just in case you are about to really mess up (I messed up really
bad a couple of days ago and this feature would have saved me a big
headache).

On 11 jun, 05:02, Al Sargent wrote:
> The idea: provide an option todelaytransmission for email for a few

> minutes after you hit "Send". After pressing send, a message is tagged
> as "Outbox". After a few minutes the message is sent, the Outbox tag,
> er label, is removed, and the Sent tag is added.
>
> The goal: if you need to make a last-minute change to an email, you
> can do so. If you've been overly harsh in an email, you can rectify
> the mistake before it's too late. If you get updated information, you
> can add it into the original email. For most emails, it doesn't matter
> that transmission is delayed by a few minutes.
>

> This isn't just my idea. I read about it here:http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/a-cautionary-tale-watc...

> Others have suggested this as well -- here's just one example:http://blogs.technet.com/jareda/archive/2004/11/06/253333.aspx
>
> Refinements:
>

> 1. Let users tweak the exactdelay. The default value could be five

[mbisesar]

I want this too!

> > overrides the transmissiondelay.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Ike]

I agree with all the suggestions, since I have more than once sent a
half finished e-mail when I went to clcik on "Save" and hit "SEND"
instead.

I have also sent an e-mail and two minutes latter realized that
A: I left out an important detail or
B: I had sent an "inappropriate" e-mail based on anger, etc, and
wished I could "take it back."

So I vote for all of the suggestions, and have one more - move the
three "buttons" in the COMPOSE MAIL a little further apart - some
users have slight hand tremors (my late mother had Parkinson's
Disease) that could cause errors in "hits"; some of us (like me) need
new glasses ;-} ; and some people are just clumsy. those three buttons
are just too close to each other, and for no good reason.

Also, being able to preschedule e-mails for future sending (an AOL
feature) such as suggested by "gosay" can be useful - sometimes you
want an e-mail to go out at a certain time so you don;t look "too
eager", or so the recipient doesn't know you were up at 3AM working on
an answer to their e-mail. Or for a million other reasons.

Ike

> > Hi, I Always wanted to send Dated, Timed Mails to people. I really

[webmastercorey]

Why isn't this in Labs yet?

[robertm]

I think this would be a great idea but I think it would be something
big to implement. So lets say that you have an email that you want to
send in two days. When you click send the message then has to go into
some sort of temporary storage; could be in your own account,
whatever. At the same time a server needs to be told that at this
certain time T person X wants to send email E. So for every message
you create the server would need to store three items of information
in a stack. The stack would probably be sorted so that the ones due to
be sent earlier are on the top and then the server would have to check
every minute whether or not to send the top message.

Essentially I think google has not done it because it is a bigger
project than people realise. It would take one man on %20 percent
quite some time i think. :)

[the_curator]

> [Dan1234] I've also had a few instances where I've accidentally hit the "tab" key and return and therefore sent an unfinished message.
> [Ike] So I vote for all of the suggestions, and have one more - move the three "buttons" in the COMPOSE MAIL a little further apart - some users have slight hand tremors
> [GMS] I think instead of delay it could be a simple confirm button, with an ability to choose an option to disable it (for users who might not like it)
I just want to echo that I'm thinking the exact same things. As an
over-caffeinated keyboard masher, I actually clear out the to, cc, and
bcc fields before typing emails to make sure I don't send them too
early. All these ideas are great, and exactly what I've been wanting.
I tried briefly to make some of these changes with GreaseMonkey, but
Gmail's crazy encryption/compression makes that difficult.

[Andy Montgomery]

Ditto. Definitely would love this feature!

On Sep 22, 11:37 am, the_curator <DumSpiroSpar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [Dan1234] I've also had a few instances where I've accidentally hit the "tab" key and return and therefore sent an unfinished message.
> > [Ike] So I vote for all of the suggestions, and have one more - move the three "buttons" in the COMPOSE MAIL a little further apart - some users have slight hand tremors

> > [GMS] I think instead ofdelayit could be a simple confirm button, with an ability to choose an option to disable it (for users who might not like it)

[Blackes56]

Yes, greatly needed feature!

[Caneel]

completely agree. to summarize, we would like to see at least the
following features:

(1) delay sending of all emails by chosen length of time
(a) all of the time
(b) until after specific times (e.g. nights, weekends, holidays
9-11am wednesdays)
(2) delay sending of filtered emails
(a) all of the time
(b) until after specific times
(3) message-specific scheduling (useful for birthday notes, planned
emails to teams/groups, task reminders and triggers, etc. Maybe could
sync w/ gCal.)

It would also be nice to schedule when your emails are received either
by all senders or filtered senders.


On Nov 1, 11:15 pm, Blackes56 wrote:
> Yes, greatly needed feature!

[Ole]

Would love that feature !

[dbri...@gmail.com]

The best way to do this feature is to have two buttons. Send and Send
Later. When clicking Send Later a window would then appear and the
user could type in the date/time for the email to be sent. This could
give the user more time to answer other emails and allow the user to
not appear too desperate when responding to a job offer or romantic
interest.

On Nov 14, 4:19 pm, Caneel wrote:
> completely agree.  to summarize, we would like to see at least the
> following features:
>

> (1)delaysending of all emails by chosen length of time

>    (a) all of the time
>    (b) until after specific times (e.g. nights, weekends, holidays
> 9-11am wednesdays)

> (2)delaysending of filtered emails

[soccerplayerguy916]

I see a couple of problems with this.

1. As robertm said, it would be somewhat difficult to implement and
manage. Instead of the server sending each email out as fast as it
can, it now has to determine which emails need to be sent out now, and
which ones need to be sent later.

2. I want my emails sent instantly (except for, of course, the ones I
want to take back). I don't want to have a delay before my email
arrives. As many have suggested, it seems that having a "send later"
button along with a "send" button would be good idea, and I, for a
moment, liked the idea very much, until I noticed one big flaw. I
won't use the "send later" button. I will want my emails sent
instantly. You don't regret your email before it has been sent. You
regret it AFTER you hit the "send" button. The person sending an email
won't want to have their email delayed. They will want it to go
instantly, resulting in the "send later" button being used very
infrequently and just crowding my screen.

[Michael Hackett]

soccerplayerguy916 wrote:
> I see a couple of problems with this.
>
> 1. As robertm said, it would be somewhat difficult to implement and
> manage. Instead of the server sending each email out as fast as it
> can, it now has to determine which emails need to be sent out now, and
> which ones need to be sent later.

You'd just have to have a delayed mail queue, which would separate
from the actual mail delivery server. Your "held" mail would be in
your GMail account, and the system would pick it out after a set
amount of time. This is all pretty simple to implement, so I don't
think that's a concern.

> 2. I want my emails sent instantly (except for, of course, the ones I
> want to take back). I don't want to have a delay before my email
> arrives. As many have suggested, it seems that having a "send later"
> button along with a "send" button would be good idea, and I, for a
> moment, liked the idea very much, until I noticed one big flaw. I
> won't use the "send later" button. I will want my emails sent
> instantly. You don't regret your email before it has been sent. You
> regret it AFTER you hit the "send" button. The person sending an email
> won't want to have their email delayed. They will want it to go
> instantly, resulting in the "send later" button being used very
> infrequently and just crowding my screen.

Personally, I've found the instances where an immediate response would
be required are pretty rare, at least in my case. If someone wants a
quick reply from me, they should use IM or call, as I don't sit there
staring at my email inbox all day. I only check it occasionally. While
I'm working, I don't want to be interrupted by notifications for
messages that generally aren't of a time-sensitive nature. I get to it
when I get to it. So a few extra minutes delay in sending the reply
rarely makes
any difference.

Again, if we consider Claris Emailer's implementation, you would
configure it to send mails, say, 5 minutes after you hit "Queue",
which is sufficient time to recover if you sent it by accident, or if
you
remembered something else you wanted to include, or whatever. To me, 5
minutes is no big deal. Mail will often get hung up for longer than
that in various mail queues it may go through along the way. And you
can set the time shorter or longer, as you prefer.

I really don't like the idea of having two buttons, "Send" and "Send
Later", because people will inevitably hit the wrong one by accident.
Part of the impetus for wanting this feature came from people hitting
"Tab + Enter" or "Tab + Space" while composing a message and having
the unfinished message sent prematurely. IMO, if you enable the
"delayed send" feature, the "Send" button should change to "Queue
Message" and all messages go through the delay queue, where you can
get them back.

However, if there really is something you want to send right away,
Emailer also had a good solution for you. There was a menu option
called something like "Send Now", which would send one or all queued
messages immediately. I prefer this because it requires you to make an
extra step to override the expected behavior. This could be a on a
drop-down menu beside the "Queue" outbox line.

[Spinnekopje]

On Nov 16, 11:55 pm, Ole wrote:
> Would love that feature !

Me too!

Maybe make it as standard option of gmail: sent mails after x minutes.
If the value is different from 0, an outbox view is created and when
'Send' is pressed they move to there and are send after the choosen
value. But I think it is also important that if you change a mail in
the outbox view the delay is resetted.

[soccerplayerguy916]

There are a few things that bug me about Michael Hackett's ideas.
1. Chat doesn't enable you to send pictures or attachments. I don't
want to have to go through an extra step to send some file or pic.

2. Also, Chat only works with Gmail and AOL members. I have a lot of
friends who I email who have Hotmail and Yahoo accounts. I use email
almost like a chat when I am talking with them because I don't have do
download a program to use it, and it keeps a record of the
conversation.

[sebastie...@gmail.com]

Hi
I understand all your argues and the difficulty it occurs.
The goal is only to avoid to send a message "too fast" or "by error"
and in the same time, to keep the agility of the chat. Could it be
possible just to add a confirmation window "Are you sure you want to
send this message ?" and why not, with the possibility of adding a
delay... And add this as an option !!
I'm not a developer but I hope this could be easy ??

On 26 nov, 05:28, soccerplayerguy916 wrote:
> There are a few things that bug me about Michael Hackett's ideas.
> 1. Chat doesn't enable you to send pictures or attachments. I don't
> want to have to go through an extra step to send some file or pic.
>
> 2. Also, Chat only works with Gmail and AOL members. I have a lot of
> friends who I email who have Hotmail and Yahoo accounts. I use email
> almost like a chat when I am talking with them because I don't have do
> download a program to use it, and it keeps a record of the
> conversation.
>
> On Nov 25, 8:51 am, Michael Hackett wrote:
>
> > soccerplayerguy916 wrote:
> > > I see a couple of problems with this.
>
> > > 1. As robertm said, it would be somewhat difficult to implement and
> > > manage. Instead of the server sending each email out as fast as it
> > > can, it now has to determine which emails need to be sent out now, and
> > > which ones need to be sent later.
>
> > You'd just have to have a delayed mail queue, which would separate
> > from the actual mail delivery server. Your "held" mail would be in
> > your GMail account, and the system would pick it out after a set
> > amount of time. This is all pretty simple to implement, so I don't
> > think that's a concern.
>
> > > 2. I want my emails sent instantly (except for, of course, the ones I

> > > want to take back). I don't want to have adelaybefore my email

> > > arrives. As many have suggested, it seems that having a "send later"
> > > button along with a "send" button would be good idea, and I, for a
> > > moment, liked the idea very much, until I noticed one big flaw. I
> > > won't use the "send later" button. I will want my emails sent
> > > instantly. You don't regret your email before it has been sent. You
> > > regret it AFTER you hit the "send" button. The person sending an email
> > > won't want to have their email delayed. They will want it to go
> > > instantly, resulting in the "send later" button being used very
> > > infrequently and just crowding my screen.
>
> > Personally, I've found the instances where an immediate response would
> > be required are pretty rare, at least in my case. If someone wants a
> > quick reply from me, they should use IM or call, as I don't sit there
> > staring at my email inbox all day. I only check it occasionally. While
> > I'm working, I don't want to be interrupted by notifications for
> > messages that generally aren't of a time-sensitive nature. I get to it

> > when I get to it. So a few extra minutesdelayin sending the reply

> > rarely makes
> > any difference.
>
> > Again, if we consider Claris Emailer's implementation, you would
> > configure it to send mails, say, 5 minutes after you hit "Queue",
> > which is sufficient time to recover if you sent it by accident, or if
> > you
> > remembered something else you wanted to include, or whatever. To me, 5
> > minutes is no big deal. Mail will often get hung up for longer than
> > that in various mail queues it may go through along the way. And you
> > can set the time shorter or longer, as you prefer.
>
> > I really don't like the idea of having two buttons, "Send" and "Send
> > Later", because people will inevitably hit the wrong one by accident.
> > Part of the impetus for wanting this feature came from people hitting
> > "Tab + Enter" or "Tab + Space" while composing a message and having
> > the unfinished message sent prematurely. IMO, if you enable the
> > "delayed send" feature, the "Send" button should change to "Queue

> > Message" and all messages go through thedelayqueue, where you can

[Quanticles]

Several times this week I sent an email and instantly realized that I
misworded something. A 5-minute "outbox" delay would be fantastic.

On Dec 11 2008, 12:26 pm, "[email address]" wrote:
> Hi
> I understand all your argues and the difficulty it occurs.
> The goal is only to avoid to send a message "too fast" or "by error"
> and in the same time, to keep the agility of the chat. Could it be
> possible just to add a confirmation window "Are you sure you want to

> send this message ?" and why not, with the possibility of adding adelay... And add this as an option !!