To unsend an email in Gmail on a computer, click Undo in the "Message sent" box that pops up in the bottom left right after you send. You can also give yourself more time by raising the Undo Send window to 30 seconds. Both take under a minute, and the steps below cover the desktop browser version of Gmail.
Click Undo in the "Message sent" box
Google's Gmail Help page says that right after you send a message, you have a short time to cancel it.
- Send your message as usual.
- Look at the bottom left of the Gmail window. You'll see Message sent with two options: Undo and View message.
- Click Undo.
Move fast. The box only stays up for the cancellation period you've set, and if you never changed it, you may have less time than you think.
Set Undo Send to 30 seconds
The Undo Send window is a setting, and the longest option is 30 seconds. Here are the steps from Gmail Help:
- Open Gmail at
https://mail.google.com/in a desktop browser. - In the top right, click Settings (the gear icon), then See all settings.
- Next to Undo Send, pick a Send cancellation period: 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds.
- At the bottom, click Save changes.
The menu path, in short:
Settings (gear) > See all settings > Undo Send > Send cancellation period > Save changes
If you often catch mistakes a beat too late, 30 is the setting to pick.
Undo Send is not a recall
Searches for "recall email in Gmail" usually come from people who expect Undo Send to pull a message back from someone's inbox. Google's help page doesn't describe it that way. It describes a short time to cancel right after you click Send, with a window of 5 to 30 seconds. The page says nothing about getting a message back after that window closes, so don't count on it.
If you want a message to go out later instead, see How to Schedule an Email in Gmail (and Edit It on Android).
When Undo Send doesn't show up
Undo Send is a Gmail feature, and it shows up inside Gmail. The official page's advice for messages that don't go out right away is to check your internet connection, and, if you sent from another email client such as Apple Mail or Outlook, to send from the Gmail app or mail.google.com instead, according to Gmail Help. If you want the "Message sent" box with its Undo button, use Gmail directly.
Android and iPhone have their own instructions
The steps above are for Gmail in a computer browser. Google keeps separate tabs of the same help page for the mobile apps, including the Android version and an iPhone & iPad version. Check those for how undo works in the app on your phone. The cancellation period options described here come from the desktop page, so set your 30 seconds on a computer.
