Google Gives the Gift of Allowing People to “Unsend” Emails

You know you’re going to have a panic attack when you mistakenly send the wrong email to the wrong person. And that could be anything, from a drunk night at home to sending a typo-ridden resume to your employer.

It’s safe to say that emails can be pesky (they always will be). And they can be the cause of so much anxiety when you send the wrong thing out. But not to worry, Google has seen the error of its way and has finally given us an option to undo our mistakes.

It’s a little disappointing to find out that this option has existed for some time. According to Ars Technica, they reported that, “The six-year-old option…had previously lived in Gmail’s Labs tab, so if users wanted to enable it, they had to bypass a stark warning about ‘experimental’ features that could ‘change, break, or disappear at any time.'”

Now, the Google Help page has the instructions to deleting your sent email. Step One, you want to click the gear in the top right  and from there, it’ll drop down a list of option. Step Two, you’re going to click on Settings. From there, you’ll move on down to “Undo Send” and then enable it. You’ll be given the option of a “cancellation period” which the page defines as “the amount of time you have to decide if you want to unsend an email.” Lastly, you click Save Changes and you’re good to go.

It’s great to hear that Google users have this option for their emails. Why it isn’t a standard practice amongst other email clients remains to be seen. For now, Gmail users can sleep soundly tonight, knowing they have option to undo a mistake before it completely ruins them. Let me know what you think of this option in the comments below.