Recalling a Sent Email in Microsoft Outlook

Purpose

This article contains information on the Recall Email feature of Microsoft Outlook.

Introduction

Have you ever realized that you made a grammatical error in your email or that you missed including important information in it right after you hit the Send button? Microsoft’s Recall Email feature is here to save the day! With this feature, you can retrieve an email from the mailboxes of recipients who are yet to open the email.

Note: This feature is available only after the email has been sent. Also, both the sender and the receiver should have a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Exchange account in the same organization. For example, if a message is sent to or from Gmail/Hotmail, you would not be able to recall it.

Procedure

1. Locate the Sent Items folder from the folder pane of the outlook window.

2. Double click on the Email that you want to recall so that it opens in a new window.

Note: Just single clicking on the email will open the email in preview mode. The recall feature would not be visible in that mode.

3. Outlook gives you two ribbons to choose from, Classic Ribbon and Simplified Ribbon. These ribbons change the view of the task bar that you see at the top of your email.

• Simplified Ribbon View: Click on the Three dots icon (...) towards the extreme right of the screen. Then, click on Actions > Recall This Message.

• Classic Ribbon View: Click on Actions > Recall This Message.               

Note: You will not be able to recall sent emails on the web version of outlook.

4. Once you click on Recall This Message, a dialogue box like the one below would appear.
5. Select the Delete unread copies of this message option from the two radio buttons.
6. Keep the highlighted check box ticked to know the status of the recall. Once done, click OK.
7. With the check box ticked, you would get an email with the report of the status of the recall.