How To Recall An Email In Microsoft Outlook 2023

Have you mistakenly sent an email to someone? or did you forget to attach an important document with your email? If you have sent your email using Microsoft Outlook you are in luck. You can easily recall an email in Outlook 365 and Outlook exchange. In this tutorial, we are going to describe how to recall an email in Microsoft Outlook 2023.

How to Recall an Email in Outlook

How To Recall An Email In Microsoft Outlook

You can only recall an email in Outlook in that situation if your recipient has not opened the email yet. If your recipient has already opened the email and read it, it’s too late for you to un-send the email. However, if the recipient hasn’t seen it yet, you’re lucky. You can recall the email in Outlook via the following steps in this guide.

What Does Actually Recall an Email Means?

If you send any Email accidentally or you included anything wrong in the message and want to update it, then you can remove it from the receiver’s inbox before they read it. In Microsoft Outlook you can recall Email in two different ways:

Delete or recall the email before the receiver has read it
Resend the email or message with a new message

Once you have successfully un-sent an email your recipient will not be able to read or see it.

Steps to Recall an Email in Outlook

By following the described steps you can easily recall or un-send your emails.

Step 1: Open your Sent Items folder and check for the email you want to recall mostly it will be at top of the list. Before moving to the next step, double-click on this desired email to open it fully.

Step 2: On the toolbar click the Message tab and make it active. Further, navigate to the Move section and click the More Move Actions button nominated with a letter and an envelope.

Step 3: Then, select the Recall This Message option from the opened drop-down list.

Step 4: If your version of the software is much simpler, go along with: Select the Message tab, choose the three-dots icon, choose Actions, and then select Recall This Message.

Step 5: A pop-up screen appears on your device. Here, you have two options: Delete Unread Copies and Replace With a New Message or Delete Unread Copies of This Message. You’ll also navigate through an option to let Outlook notify you that process succeeds or fails.

Step 6: To continue, select your desired option and click the OK button. If you have deleted the message successfully and want to replace it with updated content, carry on with it.

Step 7:Outlook opens a second screen so you can edit the message. If you select to make a replacement.

Step 8: As soon as you compose your updated email, MS Outlook recalls your old message and shows a notification (if you choose that particular option). When you’re done with the revised message, just click the Send button.

Recalling An Email Sent On A Mobile

You have sent an email through smart and want to recall it. We are glad to let you know you can recall that email from your mobile device using the Outlook app.

The procedure is a bit different, but it’s very easy to go:

Click that email that you want to recall and open it up.
Navigate to the Message tab.
Click Actions from the dropdown menu.
Select Recall This Message.
Compose a new message and tap Send.

Recall Your Email in Outlook 365

To recall an email in Outlook 365, scroll to the Sent Items folder from the folder section on the left side of the window. Double-click that message you want to recall to open it. In the Message tab, from the drop-down menu click Actions and then choose the Recall This Message option. This only works if your recipient hasn’t already opened the email, so many times it won’t work even if you have the right software and you’re in the same organization.

When you choose to Recall This Message, a window will pop up with some options. Select whether you need to delete unread copies of the message or you want to delete unread copies and send a replacement email. That you can send with the attachment included or the mistake corrected or updated whatever you missed. You can also use an option that Outlook inform you whether the recall action was successfully implemented for each receiver included in that email.

What To Do For Recalling And Replacing A Message

On the left side of the Outlook window, choose the Sent Items folder from the folder pane.
Then, Open that message which you wish to resend. Double-click to open that message. After you select the message you can see it in the reading pane. Without opening it, you won’t be able to recall the message.
If you have the Classic Ribbon, from the Message tab, select Actions then Recall This Message.
Otherwise, If you are using the Simplified Ribbon, choose the Message tab and then select More commands. After that follow the above step.
Then, select Delete unread copies of this message or Delete unread copies and update it with a new message, and then click OK.

If you choose to send a replacement message, compose a new message, and then click Send.

How To See Sent Folder In Outlook

Your sent emails are not saved in the Sent folder by default. This happens for some Outlook users if your email is not present in the Sent folder. Then, you won’t be able to recall it. To fix this, you will need to navigate to File and then Options. Next, select Mail.

After that, make sure Sent Mail is chosen under Save Messages, in the drop-down box. Now, all your sent emails will go into the Sent folder. If you are not able to see your Sent folder, you may require to click on one of the downward arrows on the left panel to get access to it.

You Can Send Delaying Messages

If you think you will misplace the message or you need something more to add to the email, but you don’t have the attachments, then you can use a schedule or delay the messages that you want to send. Sending Delay Messages will provide you time to recall missing things and recognize errors or update the information to send before the recipient goes through incomplete emails.

This is the best way to prevent embarrassing situations. This option will schedule your email at a delayed time. That way, you can again take a look at it before it sends out.

Follow the below steps to do this in Outlook:

Select “File” from the top left side of the Outlook window.
Click on “Manage Rules and Alerts”.
You will see a pop-up window will appear with different settings choices. Select the “New Rule” option from there.
Then Choose “Click on Apply rule on messages I send”
Click Next two times to continue to the next step.
You’ll see a confirmation screen. Select your choice and click “Yes” to confirm.
A screen will appear referring “defer delivery by a number of minutes” and check the box next to it to make it activate.
Set the amount of delayed time before sending the email.
Move towards the next few steps by clicking next as needed and then Selecting Finish. All done!

From Now, each of your emails will be sent after adding a delay to it.

Why Doesn’t Email Recall Always Work?

While it looks much simple, why does recalling an email won’t always work? this is the way you think. In reality, with today’s internet speeds and an average increase in usage of the internet, that mistakenly sent email may already be read from someone’s inbox. If this is the case it may create several issues for your professional career. Also, a few different factors will fail your attempts to recall an email from Outlook.

Can I Recall A Sent Email In Outlook For Mac?

Unfortunately, these steps can’t work on Mac OS. In fact, there is no feature to unsent an email in any version of Microsoft Outlook for Mac. You should either use Outlook Web to be able to use this function otherwise you can’t undo the sent messages.

Factors Included For Recall To Work

The receiver must be a user of Microsoft Outlook 365 and has a Microsoft Exchange Server Account
Your recipient hasn’t opened the email yet
The email is not sent to a public inbox
Your particular email has not been redirected to a folder automatically other than your receiver’s inbox

Does The Recipient Know If An Email Is Recalled?

Simply No, if the original message is never opened, the receiver of your email will never know that the email is recalled. They will only see the updated email you have sent in place of the first one. But if a recipient has opened your original message, you can’t even recall it. The receiver can still get and read the recalled email, but the original remain in his/her inbox. That’s the reason why you should work on recalling as soon as possible.

What To Do If Receiver Has Read the Message

If the recipient has read the first original email, it cannot be recalled, and both the recall message and the original one will stay in the recipient’s Outlook inbox. But your receivers have the option of tracking to automatically process requests if the recipient opens the recall message first and has not responded to meeting requests, then the first message will be deleted or replaced, based on which you choose.

Lastly, if the recipient has a feature to move messages out of the inbox and to the other folders, Outlook is not able to recall the message eventually the recall request will fail. Additionally, this action does not work properly if the receiver isn’t using Outlook as their email application.

Wrapping Up

This is the complete process you should follow to recall your email in Microsoft Outlook. In the end, we must say you shouldn’t rely only on Outlook to save you if you send an important email to the wrong person or send something you’d need to take back for some reason. The only thing that can always prevent you from this situation is to never put yourself in that position first of all.

Even if you now know how to recall an email in Microsoft Outlook, never forget to proofread your messages and double-check all attachments as well as recipients before you click the send button. But the quicker you recall your email, the higher your chances will be of successfully recalling it from the receiver’s inbox. We wish you Good luck!