Ever composed a very nice job application and just after hitting the send button you realize a grave typo in your salutation that changes everything and would potentially make your application trash folder fodder? I’ve been there before and trust me, it is not a pleasant place to be in. That’s why for the longest time ever, I’ve always had the ability to “unsend” an email moments after hitting send always turned on in the Google Labs area of my Gmail where Google parades all the features its engineers are currently working on to make Gmail even better.
‘Undo Send’ doesn’t recall your email from the other end. Google simply holds onto your correspondence for a few second longer before transmitting just in case you change your mind.
I’ve had ‘Undo Send’ turned on for so long that I even forgot it was still in beta. Until moments ago when I was notified that it has finally graduated. ‘Undo Send’ is now a standard Gmail feature and everyone and their grandmother can now have it. You need not be scared that since it is still under testing some things will be broken.
If you were a user of the feature before you’ll notice that there is nothing new here. It’s the same old feature you’ve known and it will continue being enabled. It just stopped being a Labs thing and is now deemed by the powers that be over at Mountain View in California to be very stable for use as a daily driver without users ever encountering misplaced bugs often. ‘Undo Send’ has been in beta for quite some time. Six years to be exact. In recent days, the feature has become available on the Gmail team’s other pet project, Inbox. Inbox which was also on a trial for a short while and was invite-only became open to everyone during Google I/O 15 and with the feature available there, it was only a matter of time before it became available on the platform where Gmail is used most: the web.
You can turn the feature on and off in their settings under the General tab. Turning it on doesn’t mean that you have the license to be reckless. You’ll still need to mind your grammar and be very sure of what you’re sending as you’ll only have up to half a minute to rescind that decision if you have second thoughts.
