After spending the last six years as a lost experiment in the Gmail Labs section, Google has decided to promote the possibility of undoing the sending of an email to the category of official feature. If you think you can regret sending an email, Undo Send is the ideal solution, as long as the regret manifests itself between five and thirty seconds afterward.
Email has been accused of being too formal, very linear, inflexible, coarse, insecure, toxic to mental health, and directly obsolete. However, over the years it has managed to resist all those assaults, preserving a traditional and effective structure. I won't deny it: deep down, we detest receiving email. In just over fifteen years it lost that mysterious (and I'd say almost romantic) profile to give way to spam storms, the barking of bosses over the weekend, the chains from an aunt who just discovered "that thing called Hotmail", and notifications from social networks.
The Long Road to Official Status
On more than one occasion, attempts have been made to reinvent email. I imagine several of our readers still remember the hysteria around Google Wave. Facebook tried to offer something different, but had no choice but to bury its famous @facebook.com. In Gmail there is a section called Labs, which shares with users small hacks to modify the behavior of their accounts. The most interesting on the list was Undo Send, which enables the user to undo (read cancel) the sending of an email. Basically, it's an artificial delay between the command to transmit the message and the action itself, which can last between five and thirty seconds. After spending just over half a decade in the dark corridors of the Labs section, Google decided to turn Undo Send into an official feature. In part, this is because the Redmond giant did the same in Inbox, its new email app for mobile devices.
How to Activate Undo Send
To activate Undo Send, all you have to do is go to the configuration options in your Gmail account, place a checkmark in its box (it should be halfway down in the General section), and choose the delay time. Personally, I recommend setting the maximum of thirty seconds, just in case.
