Anyone who uses email regularly knows that feeling – the heart palpatations after hitting ‘send’ on an email too soon. Hayley Clark has some remedies and advice to ensure it never happens again.

Perhaps you’ve just spotted an embarrassing typo, realised you forgot to add an important detail, failed to attach a document, or entered the wrong name in the recipient box. Whatever the case, these accidents are usually nothing that a follow-up or quick apology can’t fix, but sometimes it can cause real issues.

In fact, the need for unsending emails has become so common that major email service providers have started to offer solutions for when you need to recall an email.

Here’s what you can do.

How to recall an email in Gmail

The closest thing to an email recall in Gmail is the ‘undo send’ feature. You can enable this feature in your settings (click on the little cog in the top right hand corner) and choose how long you would like your window to be.

Basically, you can choose a window of 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds. Instead of being able to recall an email in Gmail, this feature essentially delays sending the email for that time – allowing you a moment to panic and realise your mistake, then hit the ‘undo send’ button that pops up on screen every time you hit the send button.

Unfortunately, if you’re looking for how to recall an email already sent in Gmail after that time is up, there’s nothing you can do about it but go into damage control.

How to recall an email in Outlook

Outlook is a little different, and there is a feature hidden here that essentially allows you to delete a sent email. Although you have to be quick, and there’s a big catch.

As soon as you have realised your error, head to your ‘Sent Items’ folder and then open the email you want to recall. Select the ‘Message’ tab, then in the ‘Move’ group click on ‘Actions’ and then select ‘Recall This Message.’

A new window will open with two options; ‘Delete unread copies of this message’ or ‘Delete unread copies and replace with a new message’.

So if you’re very quick, you can unsend a ‘sent’ email – but if the recipient has already opened the email, it’s too late. One small silver lining here is that Outlook can tell you if a recall succeeds or fails for each recipient, so at least you’ll know who to apologise to.

The catch is that the feature will also only work if you’re using a Microsoft Exchange email account and if the recipient is on the same server as you. So if you’ve sent to recipients outside of your office or to recipients using a completely different email provider, then this function won’t work.

I sent a mass marketing email with an error. What now?

Sorry, but you won’t be able to recall these. Once they’ve been sent, the cat’s out of the bag and they won’t come back. But it’s okay, these things happen, and the most important factor at this point is how you recover from it.

Acknowledge and own your mistake

If you’ve made a mistake, the best thing you can do is own it, and start handling it in a professional manner. If you report to someone, send an email to your manager explaining what happened.

Bonus points if you can offer suggestions for rectifying the problem (a fun but small freebie for anyone who spots your typo, perhaps?), or avoiding it in future.

Decide how bad it really is

How many emails went out? Just how big was this mistake? Was it just a simple typo or did you accidentally promote a 100% off sale rather than a 10% off sale? The small stuff can probably slide, but if your mistake is likely to cause customer dissatisfaction, you need to act quickly. So now is the time to make a plan.

Don’t hesitate to solve the problem

Every business runs into marketing mishaps, and it’s all about how they handle it. In some cases, you can turn the problem into a positive. In the case of it being a big ‘oops’ moment, it’s best to respond quickly. You might even be able to get your customer to read your replacement email first, since it will generally sit higher in their inbox.

Write a clear subject line, like, ‘Sorry about that last email’ or ‘Oops, we made a mistake’ so your user knows why they’re getting another email from you. Apologise upfront and own the mistake. Remember to stay on brand and always include the correct information.

Make sure it never happens again

To avoid having to Google ‘how to delete an email’ again next month, set a plan in place now to avoid it happening again.

1. Never use placeholder text like ‘Lorem Ipsum’ in your emails.
2. Switch on Gmail’s ‘undo send’ feature now and make it office policy.
3. Proofread your email once, twice and even three times. If it helps, read out loud, or take a break and come back to read it again later.
4. Always use spell check.
5. Have another person to look over your email to check for errors and to ensure every link or attachment is working. Ask the most pedantic person you can find.
6. Turn these steps into a checklist so that everyone in your business follows these steps before they hit send.

Have a ‘sorry’ or ‘oops’ template ready to go in the event that you do make a mistake. This will mean you can bounce back faster when mistakes do happen.For more marketing advice created especially for small business head to the Yellow Business Hub. From explaining SEO in plain english to top tips for boosting your website, you’ll find it on the hub. Or get the latest articles delivered straight to your inbox with Yellow’s monthly newsletter – Hello Yellow!

Hayley Clark is a content writer born and bred in New Zealand. She has been writing, editing, and working in SEO for over five years, for a myriad of companies, including Virgin Money, Thrifty, Destination New South Wales and Michael Page.