Recall Email or Edit Sent Email With No Regrets Using unSend It

Sending an email to a client with the wrong attachment or sending a sensitive email to the wrong recipient is something we all have done in our life one time or another. Most email clients provide us with little or no control over email once it is sent. Gmail offers us a tiny window, between 5 and 30 seconds to recall email, but most often we realize our mistakes much later than that. Recalling an email in Outlook 2010 is fraught with its own problems as well such as recall not working when the recipient is using an email client other than Outlook.

Now, thankfully, you can put all your emailing worries to rest. A new web service called unSend It promises to let you recall email or edit sent email if necessary, even after the recipient has read it. We take a look at how the unSend It service works!

Features of unSend It

Before we take a look at how to recall message or edit it using unSend It, let's examine its most useful features.

How to Recall an Email with unSend It

To get started with unSend It, you first need to sign up for an account. Just head over to unsend.it , scroll down to the SignUp section, enter your email address and click SIGNUP. Then click the verification link that arrives in your Inbox.

This will take you to the sign up section again where you enter your name, username and password. Click Sign Up again.

In the next screen, select your email client. unSend It currently offers support for Gmail, iPhone and iPad, Android, AOL, Outlook.com and then some.

Configure your email account according to the instructions in the respective wizard. For instance, to set up a Gmail account, here's what you do.

1. In Gmail go to Settings > Accounts and Import.

2. In the Send mail as: section, click Add another email address you own.

3. In the pop-up screen, enter your name and add the email address created by unSend it. Click Next step.

4. In the next screen, enter the SMTP server, port, unSend It username and password and click Add account.

You will now get a verification number in your Gmail inbox, which you must input in the pop up. This may take a few minutes, so wait until it lands in your Inbox.

You also need to make the unsendit email address your primary email address although recipients will only see your existing email address, so don't worry.

The unSend It UI is clean and user friendly. The left pane contains options to compose an email, view alerts and sent email along with Settings and Installation instructions.

unSend It uses a lot of shortcodes to get things done. For instance, to track when your recipients open your email, you can type [notify] in the subject line when you compose an email and you will receive an automated email as soon as the recipient opens your email.

You can also configure email options in the Settings page.

unSend or edit email & attachments, open tracking, and self-destruct options: In this option, your email will be rendered as an image hosted on their secure server. This gives you complete control over your email content, even after the recipient has opened your email. You need to use the [uns] shortcode in your email's subject to activate this on a per email basis.

Unsend and edit attachments, open tracking: When you select this option, your email will be sent as text email. You need to use the [att] shortcode in your email's subject to activate this on a per email basis.

Open tracking only: This option only lets you track opened emails. You need to use the [trk] shortcode in your email's subject to activate this on a per email basis.

5. To recall an email, go to the Sent mail option on the left pane.

6. On the right pane, below the sent email, click Unsend.

7. To edit the email, click Edit.

In my use of unSend It I noticed that if you set an email to self destruct after it is read and then edit and resend the email, it will not be updated. I also did not find an option to send email attachments. Other than that, the service worked well enough.

unSend It would really be awesome if it were part of an existing email client. Signing up and into another interface to send email may not be something users will want to embrace right away, but for everyone who sends plenty of email messages during the day, unSend It is a step in the right direction.