Mac Outlook Recall Email
Violetta Wagganer
You should never send sensitive information in an email without additional protection. Use email encryption and consider recipient authentication to make sure your confidential messages always reach the right people, safely.
However, if your email contains sensitive information, it is vital you have the means to revoke access completely to prevent that information from falling into the wrong hands or being shared further.
Message recall is available after you select Send and is available only if both you and the recipient have a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Exchange email account in the same organization. So, for example, a message sent to or from a Hotmail, Gmail, or live.com account can't be recalled.
Status updates are usually pretty quick as well but can sometimes take up to five minutes for a message with up to a few hundred recipients. For a large number of recipients (tens of thousands) the recall itself is still fast, but it can take up to thirty minutes to retrieve the recall status for all recipients.
If you do not see the Recall This Message command, then probably you do not have an Exchange Server account or you are not using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Both are required to use the recall feature.
The success or failure of a recall depends on the recipients' settings in Microsoft Outlook. The following four scenarios explain what happens in various situations, and an additional scenario describes the recall of a message sent to a Microsoft Exchange public folder.
On the recipient's computer, either by rule or by action of the recipient, the original message is moved to another folder and the recall message remains in the Inbox (or it is moved to another folder as well).
As long as the recall message and the original message exist in separate folders, the recipient receives a message indicating that a recall attempt failed. This occurs regardless of the Outlook configurations and the read status of the message.
If the recipient who reads the recall message has read access to all the items in the public folder but did not read the original message, the recall succeeds, and only the new message remains. You, the sender, receive a message indicating that the recall succeeded.
If a user with any other public folder rights opens the recall message, the recall fails, and the user receives a message indicating that the recall failed. Both the old and new messages remain in the public folder.
Message recalls can only be performed in Outlook for Windows. If you want to unsend a message on the web, click the Settings gear and go to the Compose and reply tab. Scroll down until you see Undo send. There will be a bar where you can set the time limit an email will wait before being sent. The web version only allows emails to wait five seconds or 10 seconds before sending. To test this out, type out an email and press send. Once done, you get a popup window letting you know the message is sending. If you want to cancel the message, click the Undo button within the allotted time you choose.
Independent research shows that 91% of organizations have experienced outbound email security incidents in their Microsoft 365 environments. Human error is the primary cause of these incidents, whether that's adding an incorrect recipient, attaching the wrong file, or forgetting to use the Bcc field. Read our article 'What is a misdirected email?' for a quick introduction to human error in email.
In some particular circumstances, it is possible to recall or replace an email in Microsoft Outlook. Alternatively, the system can send an 'Outlook recall message' without removing the email from the recipient's inbox. As recalling an email in Outlook only works for recipients in the same organization as you, it is possible to use this functionality to uphold information barriers if the other conditions are met.
If you've sent an email that contains sensitive data (such as personal information, privileged information, or corporate data) to the wrong person, make sure you inform your Security, Compliance and Risk, or IT team immediately. Timely investigation and remediation can limit the impact of these incidents for any data subjects involved and for your organization. Additionally, if this type of incident happens frequently to you or others in your organization, it might be useful for them to know that we have more resources on email data loss prevention (DLP) on our blog and provide Egress Prevent, an advanced email security solution that addresses this information.
If you and your recipient(s) are all on Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft 365 and in the same organization, and a recipient has not read the email yet, it is possible to recall or replace it using the following steps.
If these and other conditions are not met, then Outlook will default to sending a recall email, which is a separate (new) email that lists the email you would like to recall. This does not delete or replace the email in a recipient's inbox. This means under the following circumstances an Outlook recall won't work:
This will only work to give you a bit more time to reconsider your message; it will not prevent you from accidentally sending the email to the wrong person. It is also only useful if you remember to check the message again before it leaves your Outbox.
Download this guide now to learn how adaptive security reduces email risks, why standard email security solutions are limited, and how to measure user risk in real-time and adjust security accordingly.
Recalling an email (or message, as the app calls them) in Outlook is easy. The desktop app includes a helpful option to recall and even replace a message you didn't want to send or want a second chance to reword. It's easy but not necessarily intuitive, so we're here to help guide you through how to recall an email in Outlook.
You can always recall an email after one hour. Recalling an email in Outlook will work as long as the recipient didn't open the message just yet. However, it is best to act fast, as once the email is opened, the recall will do no good.
Recalling emails in Outlook is the first step to being a power user with the client. If you want to go deeper, with have a roundup of seven features you probably didn't know about in Outlook. We also have three tips to keep your Outlook inbox tidy, including automatically sending your emails to specific folders.
You changed your mind: Sometimes you might compose an email and then change your mind before sending it. Maybe you had second thoughts about the tone or the content of the email, or you received new information that makes the email unnecessary or irrelevant. Instead of deleting the email and risking losing the draft, you can simply undo the send and make the necessary changes or delete the email altogether.
The email contains confidential information: If you accidentally sent an email that contains sensitive or confidential information, such as passwords, financial data, personal details, or trade secrets, you might want to unsend the email to prevent unauthorized access or data breaches. By recalling the email, you can minimize the damage and take steps to secure the information.
You want to save face: In some cases, you might want to unsend an email to avoid looking foolish or unprofessional. For example, if you sent an angry or emotional email that you regret, or if you replied to an email without fully understanding the context, you might want to recall the email and apologize or clarify your position.
The ability to unsend an email can potentially be life-changing if you protect yourself from sending the wrong message to the wrong person. Unfortunately, most email clients do not include this feature for all email service providers natively. Spike is the best email client for unsending email messages across Google Workspace, Outlook email, Yahoo, iCloud, etc. Spike supports it as an account so that the unsend email functionality will work perfectly. Download Spike today!
To resend an email in Outlook for Windows, go to File > Info > Message Resend and Recall. In macOS, right-click the message in the Sent folder and select Resend. In Outlook.com, right-click the message and select Forward, then delete Fw from the Subject line.
To encrypt an email in Outlook, go to File > Properties > Security Settings and check the Encrypt message contents and attachments box. To encrypt all outgoing messages, go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Email Security.
I know how to recall a message in Outlook and I understand the basics. The email must be unread, Outlook must be running and so on. What I don't like is that it sends the recipient an email basically asking for permission to recall the email, This usually entices them to read the email anyways. I was wondering if you can setup Outlook on the recipient end to automatically recall/process this request without any user interaction.
Outlook 365 is a powerful tool if you know how to use it well. Learning about all the features and how to execute them properly will save you time and effort. Among many different features in Outlook 365 is email recall, which might seem daunting.
We did some testing just yeasterday and discovered that the recall feature is pretty lame. As mentioned above it is only recalled if it is unread (or unpreviewed). In the case where it has been read, the recall only makes the message MORE obvious. Not the desired effect by far.
WinDeveloper just released a server-side solution for Excahnge 2007/2010. It works equally well for both emails addressed to local recipients and for emails sent to foreign recipients. For more details:
A hasty click of the mouse can happen to the best of us. So, the Send button is hit, your email is on its way to the recipient, and you are cringing at the thought of what it may cost you. Before you start weighing the consequences and composing an apology notice, why not try to retrieve the erroneous message? Luckily, many email clients provide the ability to unsend email messages after sending. Though this technique has a number of limitations, it does give you a good chance to timely correct your mistake and save face.
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