Gmail users, rejoice: Google has finally added “Undo Send” as a formal setting on the Web, which lets you recall messages sent by accident.
Regret writing that message to your boss? Accidentally click “Reply All” on a private letter? With Undo Send, you can give yourself a buffer. Visit Gmail’s general settings tab to enable the option, and choose your preferred cancellation period: 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds.
Previously, you had to enable Undo Send manually via Gmail Labs. Starting in early July, however, it will be an official feature within Gmail rather than an experimental one.
Introduced in early 2009 in Gmail Labs, the “Undo” link appears atop your inbox when you send a message. Click it, and Google will grab the message before it leaves the server.
“This feature can’t pull back an email that’s already gone,” Google designer Michael Leggett wrote in at the time. “It just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button.” If you close Gmail or your browser crashes in those few seconds, the message will send, and you’ll be out of luck.
Undo Send is already on by default in the Inbox for Gmail app, which rolled out publicly last month. For more, check out 8 Email Fails That Will Make You Cringe.