How to recall an email in Outlook

It is often common to make mistakes when sending emails, whether it is sending to the wrong recipient, forgetting to attach a file, or making a typo.

Fortunately, Microsoft Outlook allows you to recall the message with a few simple steps. In this guide, we'll walk you through how to recall or resend an Outlook email.

Table of contents

1. How to recall an email in Outlook (new)
2. How to recall an email in Outlook (classic)
3. When you can't recall Outlook emails
4. Conclusion

How to recall an email in Outlook (new)

• Go to ‘Sent Items’ on the left menu of your Outlook and open the message you want to retract.
• Click ‘...’ at the top right corner of the message, and you will see a drop-down menu.
• Choose ‘Advanced actions’, then click ‘Recall message’.

• Confirm the action by clicking 'OK' on the pop-up windows. Immediately after, you will receive a Message Recall Report to learn the status of your recalled messages.

• Alternatively, if you want to edit or replace the message, you can click the ‘Resend message’ button right below ‘Recall message’.

How to recall an email in Outlook (classic)

• Go to ‘Sent Items’ and double-click on the email you want to recall. You’ll see a separate window opening up for this message.
• Go to ‘File’, and click ‘Resend or Recall’:
  • Select ‘Recall This Message’ to delete or replace the email.
  • Select 'Resend This Message’ to update the email content or recipients.

• On the ‘Recall This Message’ window, choose the option you would like to go with:
  • Delete unread copies of this message
  • Delete unread copies and replace them with a new message. For this option, once you click ‘Send’, the original message will be deleted from the recipient’s mailbox and replaced with the new message you entered.
• Tick ‘Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient’ for a report after.

• Finally, select ‘OK’.

When you can't recall Outlook emails

While it is easy to recall an email in Outlook most of the time, there are some cases where you will not be able to carry out this action:

• You are using Outlook for Mac or Mobile. This feature is only available in the Outlook desktop application, Outlook on the Web or Outlook.com.
• The recipient already opened the email before you recall it. In this case, the email will remain in their inbox, and you won’t be able to recall it.
• The recipient doesn’t use Outlook. The recall will not work if the recipient uses Gmail, Yahoo or Apple Mail.

Conclusion

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