When we send and receive a lot of email, it's easy to get it wrong on occasion. To err is human! Sometimes we send an email forgetting to attach an important file; others, we send it directly to the wrong recipient. For these and other similar cases, it is important to know how to recover sent email in outlook
Among many other benefits, Outlook It also includes an interesting function that allows us to recover an email that has been accidentally sent. We have written this post to explain in detail the steps to follow to achieve this recovery. So, if you find yourself in the situation of having to recover an email sent by mistake, read on.
Before explaining the procedure, it is necessary to make it clear that it will only take effect if we are using a version of Outlook released from the year 2013. Ideally, we have linked our account before gmail to Outlook, which makes things much easier for us.
Another thing that we have to know is that the method that we explain below will only work if both the sender (us) and the receiver of the message use a Microsoft account. The recovery of emails sent with Outlook will not be possible when it comes to email addresses outside of this organization.
Rectification at the moment
Statistics says that most of the time we realize the error (wrong destination address, attachment not included, etc.) right after clicking the “Send” button. Microsoft Outlook contemplates these situations and offers its users the possibility of rectifying at the moment. As long as the brief period that you give us to do so is not exceeded.
To have the option of this possibility, it is necessary to activate it. To do so, you must follow these steps:
- First we go to the top of the Outlook screen and click on the icon "Settings".
- From the list of options that is displayed, we select the one of "View all Outlook settings".
- On the page shown below, let's first "Mail" and then to «Compose and reply».
- There we go to the section "Cancel Shipment", where we can configure the reaction window time, which is between 10 and 30 seconds in most versions of Outlook.
- Finally, we click on the button "Save".
After having configured this margin, every time we send an email by mistake, we will have a few precious seconds to rectify. When sending a message, a box will appear in which Outlook will ask us to review the name of the recipients or the text of the message before sending it. Very practical.
Outlook email recovery
But, what if we have not activated the rectification option or the previously configured time has already been exceeded? In those cases, to recover an email sent in Outlook, this is what we should do:
- The first thing we have to do is go to our Outlook email and open the Sent Items folder.
- In it, we look for the email we want to recover. Normally, it is at the top of the list, where the most recent ones are located. Then we double click to open it.
- Next we go to the tab "Actions" from the taskbar and open the dropdown menu.
- Among those shown, we choose the one of "Retrieve This Message".*
- In the pop-up window that appears below, we find two options:
- Delete unread copies of the message.
- Replace those copies with a new message that, this time, does contain the appropriate information.
- After choosing the one that best suits the case, click on the button «OK».
After completing the process, we will receive a report on whether this recovery has been completed successfully or if, on the contrary, it has failed and a new attempt is necessary. We will also receive information (see image above) about recipients who have already seen the mail before we got there in time to retrieve it. If it has already been received, opened and read, there is nothing to do.
(*) In case of choosing to create a replacement message, Outlook will open a second screen to compose it. When we have it ready, we just have to select “Send”.
Can you recover an email sent in Outlook from your mobile?
Everything explained above is valid for the desktop version of Outlook. However, in the Outlook mobile app none of these possibilities exist. This means that email deliveries cannot be cancelled.
This is quite a negative point for many users who only use Outlook from their mobile devices.
And if the recovery doesn't work...
Despite everything, in many cases it is not possible to recover a sent email in Outlook. That is why it is so important acquire a verification routine that we must apply whenever we are going to send a new message: verify the recipients, check the content of the email... Getting used to that can save us a lot of trouble in the long run.
And if we have already sent the email and there is no solution, we can always write a new message with an apology note or a small clarification.