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Ever wanted to withdraw an email you just sent?

11 points by tzury ↗ HN
Has it ever happened to you that you sent an email, and right after, you wanted it back?

It occurred to me more than once. Either that I found some spelling errors, or just feeling like rephrasing a paragraph, or whatever.

The question is why not let the sender pull back a message in case the recipient had never read it.

Even if it would be hard to modify the SMTP and POP protocols it can be still done with in the same server/domain, e.g. gmail.com.

I think this feature is a good one. What do you think?

27 comments

[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 84.4 ms ] thread
adrianwaj
I think there must be some mental process associated with the 'sent' or 'submit' button. It's as though the brain gets new information once those buttons are pressed that was previously unavailable prior to those buttons being pressed. Maybe it's called hindsight, or some type of reflective process.

Does the unconscious mind adopt 'regret' only at specific times, that is, after making a choice?

As an idea to improve emailing, maybe an email client that renames the send button draft 1 then draft 2 then draft 3 before ever showing 'send'. Also, there would be a time delay buffer to stop one's overriding of that 'delayed sending' feature through pressing the button 3 times rapidly in succession. The idea could even be implemented as a Thunderbird addon if one was serious about it, or a greasemonkey script.

Also, I like Digg's submission process of giving 90 seconds to change a posting before it is made permanent, that is, after pressing the 'post' button - it kind of adds a type of pressure which some people need to improve their output given the feature allows textual changes to be made in that time.

Ultimately, the need to proof read and reflect on any written communication multiple times without others' feedback can be a test of one's patience and tenacity. Regret only happens after commitment, so who can ever be certain about a choice...

Andys
Most mail clients can be configured not to send messages immediately, but to hold them in the Outbox until you hit the main Send/Receive button.

Also, I believe Lotus Notes had the feature that enabled you to take a message back (it literally removed the unread message from the recipient's Inbox).

nailer
Notes and Outlook both do this badly.

You may be able to build a reasonable business by using HTML email with includes that can be recalled before they're read.

After they're read, game over.

r7000
If there's one thing worse than an e-mail you wish you hadn't sent it is the Unsuccessful Recall Attempt.
dpapathanasiou
Even if it would be hard to modify the SMTP and POP protocols it can be still done with in the same server/domain, e.g. gmail.com.

Unless you can make it universal, i.e. across all domains, it's unlikely to catch on.

Microsoft had (still has?) a similar feature in Outlook, but it was dependent on the recipient also using Outlook on the same network (or something like that) and few people used it.

FWIW, I'll never forget the advice I got about email from a mentor at an i-bank where I used to work: don't write anything in an email that you'd be embarrassed to see show up in the Wall Street Journal.

imgabe
Yes! All it would take is a slight delay (1-5 minutes, even better if the user could set it) after sending the email before it's actually sent. Too many times I've forgotten to attach a file or something else stupid like that and realized it immediately after hitting send.
adrianwaj
Quite simply, try resending the message, have [resend] in the subject line.
intellectronica
Well, you could just discipline yourself to save outgoing emails in your `drafts` folder for a bit and read them again before you actually send them. That's what I do for most emails and it works pretty well for me.

I really wouldn't want my email service to delay my emails when I actually click `send` - I sometimes rely on them being sent immediately.

tzury
Well, you could just discipline yourself to save outgoing emails in your `drafts` folder for a bit and read them again before you actually send them. That's what I do for most emails and it works pretty well for me. That is a good advise. I'll give it a try. Anyway, one of the reasons which brought me into this post is the fact that I use Gmail, with Gmail, there is a short-cut for 'send' by hitting <tab> and then <enter>, It happened more than once that I typed this sequence without any intention to send the message and ptooof! the message is gone. I simply wanted a new paragraph but the message has already gone. I am afraid this one has not been proofed by your suggestion.

I couldn't understand what do you mean by delaying messages. I never meant to create a delay but an ability that my server will withdraw the message from the recipient's server if I asked for it and the recipient has not yet been aware of my message, that is, didn't logged in to the server since I sent or something alike .

falsestprophet
I have, from time to time, responded to email after stumbling home drunk. It turns out that this not optimal. I think that a plug-in that locked the send function between 10pm and 7am over the weekend would dramatically reduce this danger.
bls
Write yourself a post-it note that says "Don't respond to email when you are drunk" and put it on your monitor (next to your passwords) before you go out.
byrneseyeview
I think AOL used to have this. The problem I had was that suddenly, 'send' was more like 'save as draft', so I'd only get the "I shouldn't have sent that!" vibe when it was already permanently sent.
german
I've been in the same situation, but don't think your solution is the best, maybe changing a little bit the email UI in order to let you see the common errors.

- Spell checking.

- Letting you know if you haven't attached any file (in a way that you can't miss it).

- About rephrasing a paragraph, maybe saving drafts before sending your email (as intellectronica says in a comment), but it should be something the user does, not the UI.

oditogre
Enh, I dunno. I kind of see this in the same light as /.'s way of allowing you to preview, but not edit or delete, a comment. On the average, I think it brings up the quality of posts on an individual basis, the longer a person has regularly posted there. The nearest thing to a feature like this that I would want would be biometrics in my keyboard / mouse / desk / chair that wouldn't let an email send if I was clearly enraged and / or drunk. ;)
bcater
Too bad someone can't just remove your soon-to-be-regretted letters from the outgoing mail a la Samuel Clemens' wife.
florianb
Pretty easy to implement in any application just let the app wait for 1 minute before actually sending anything and show the user an undo button.

Of course if you notice something later that won't help you. I copied this concept from a blog but I don't remember which one.

mhartl
I agree completely; I too sometimes have "sender's remorse". I even made a suggestion to Gmail about a month ago that they extend their useful "Undo" feature to sent emails (presumably implemented with some sort of small but non-negligible time delay before actually sending). I ended by noting that "this may seem like a strange feature to request, but I bet people would love it". I guess there are at least two.
imsteve
That is the best reason to use the in-site messaging of the popular social networking sites. They all allow this.
Afton
This idea was suggested by Paul Buchheit in July. I think it's a good idea. I occasionally hit 'send' when I mean 'delete' and once I do, that's it, it's sent. PB's original idea was that just about every action should be undo-able.

The original idea. http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

daniel-cussen
AOL used to have "unsend," which allowed you to take a message you sent out of a person's inbox if that person had not yet read it. I thought it was a nice feature.
yters
The bulletin board system at my college did this. Quite handy and very missed once I left.
christefano
For Thunderbird there are several extensions that may help: BlunderDelay, SendTools and Send Later Extension. I use BlunderDelay.
skmurphy
One thing not mentioned is to send it to yourself. That seems to trigger most of the emotional/regret glands associated with the send button, it stores the content of the message verbatim, and you can review it in the morning and really send it if you feel the same way. I also have Eudora configured so that it only sends mail once and hour so that even though I have hit the send button I typically have some time to experience the "l'esprit d'escalier" or "I wish I had said this instead" triggered by the send button.