The best way to think of the new “Undo Send” feature of Gmail is to consider it as a delay or a grace period, not a retraction.
Google can’t take back the regrettable message that landed in someone else’s inbox or the reply-all message about a personal problem that went to your boss and 200 other people.
What it can do, however, is give you a short period of time — you can choose between 5 to 30 seconds — to hold onto your email before you send it.
After introducing Undo Send through Google Labs in 2009, Google this week — six years after launching the experimental feature — made it a lot easier for regular Gmail users to adopt it by introducing it a formal email setting.
As shown in the above photo, Gmail will show you two options after you hit send. “Undo Send” will bring the email back as a draft. “View message” will send it and let you look at what you sent. A third option, ignoring the prompt, will mean you send the message after the grace period runs out.
Here’s how to enable Undo Send, says Google:
Click the gear in the top right of your Gmail.
Select Settings.
Scroll down to “Undo Send” and click Enable.
Set the cancellation period (the amount of time you have to decide if you want to unsend an email).
Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
Above: Screenshot of Gmail with “Undo Send” enabled.
