We’ve all sent, accidently or on purpose, an email that we immediately regretted sending. It may have been an email for your CLNC® business, personal or otherwise. Sometimes we just want to revise our thoughts and other times we just regret those thoughts. But I’ve been asked by many a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant whether or not it’s possible to recall or un-send an email. As my CLNC amigos know, in the tech world the answer is always an unequivocal maybe.
If you’re on a corporate server using Microsoft® Outlook coupled with Microsoft Exchange you can recall email sent to others who are also getting email via a properly configured Exchange server. Simply go to your Sent Mail folder and open the message that you want to recall, click Actions and then click Recall This Message. If your Exchange server is correctly configured you’ll be given a choice to delete the message or to delete it and replace it with a different message. You can also get a notification of whether or not the recall succeeded – in other words who digested the fruits of your poison pen. But note, this only works for recipients who are also using an Exchange server for their email. In other words if they’re using a Gmail®, Hotmail® or Yahoo!® account you can’t recall the message you sent them. And to make matters worse, this doesn’t always work even for email sent from one Exchange server to another (outside) Exchange server. It depends on server configurations and the whims of the Internet.
Outlook is a popular email program that comes bundled with many Microsoft Office products so you could be using Outlook with a POP3, IMAP or HTTP email account in which case you won’t get the option to recall an email. If you’re a CLNC consultant using an Internet-based email service such as Yahoo! or AOL (Really!) on its own, you won’t be able to recall an email. Gmail, at the time of this Tech Tip, offers the ability to undo or recall messages sent to anyone from Gmail regardless of the email service the recipient is using. This ability is accessible through your Settings and Lab selections in Gmail. Follow the general steps in the linked article (above) and you’ll be recalling messages like a CLNC Pro before you know it. The only drawback is that you only have a short period to decide whether to recall it or not. I’d also recommend testing it with email addresses other than Gmail before you decide to depend on it.
At the end of the day, email should be considered a permanent business communication and every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant should think of the end (result) before they click Send.
Keep on Techin’,
Tom
P.S. Comment and share whether you’ve ever wished you could recall an email (and why).
One thought on “Tom’s Tech Tip: Oh No! Don’t Read This Email!”
Yes, I have wanted to recall an email, but did not know it could be done. I just try to be careful and avoid making a mistake like that, but we are human. Thanks for sharing the tip.
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Keep on Techin’,
Yes, I have wanted to recall an email, but did not know it could be done. I just try to be careful and avoid making a mistake like that, but we are human. Thanks for sharing the tip.