Regret that email? Gmail gives users chance to call it back

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The logo of web search engine Google is seen behing a computer keyboard. Google's Gmail now gives users a brief window to recall emails after they've been sent.

Just about everybody has sent an email, noticed a mistake as they hit the "send" button and wanted to call it back.

Google's Gmail now gives users a brief window to do just that.

An "Undo Send" feature introduced in Google's email program holds a message for five seconds before sending it.

Gmail's sent mail confirmation message now includes an "Undo" link. Clicking on "Undo" will return a message to its draft form.

The feature does not, however, allow a user to recall a message that's already been sent.

"It just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button," Google said in a post on Thursday on the official Gmail blog announcing the new feature.

Last year, Google introduced a feature to Gmail designed to prevent users from sending drunken emails. "Mail Goggles" forces users to solve five simple math problems in less than a minute in order to send a Gmail missive.

(c) 2009 AFP

   

• Szkeptik - Mar 20, 2009
  • Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
  So it's basically a countdown timer. How the hell do these sorts of things make it onto a science page?
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• LuckyBrandon - Mar 20, 2009
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  yea htis is just a retarded idea.; google is sinking their heads in their asses along with the rest of the technology companies i guess....waste of freakin time, if you cant recall the message, there is no point at all....
  i mean hell, message recalls are an old ass basic email thing....should be rather simple to do really...
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• bhiestand - Mar 20, 2009
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  yea htis is just a retarded idea.; google is sinking their heads in their asses along with the rest of the technology companies i guess....waste of freakin time, if you cant recall the message, there is no point at all....
  
  i mean hell, message recalls are an old ass basic email thing....should be rather simple to do really...

  
  That's a silly notion. Are you saying you've never ACCIDENTALLY hit the send button? I sure have... You can prevent that from putting up a confirmation window, but that's both horrid and frustrating. This is a far better way of implementing the same functionality... realize you shouldn't have sent it right as you were sending it? Stop it before it goes out. Didn't make any mistakes? Just keep doing what you were doing, you won't notice the 5 second delay.
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