How to Recall an Email in Outlook
Step-by-step guide to recalling, replacing, or unsending an email in Outlook. Covers New Outlook, Classic Outlook, Outlook Web, personal accounts, and how to set up a send delay so you never need recall again.
We have all been there. You hit Send and immediately realize the email went to the wrong person, had an embarrassing typo in the subject line, or included that sarcastic line you were supposed to delete.
The good news is that Outlook has a built-in recall feature that can pull a sent message back before the recipient reads it. The less good news is that it only works under specific conditions, and a lot of people find that out the hard way.
This guide covers the full picture. We will walk you through recalling an email in both New and Classic Outlook, explain what to do if recall is not available for your account, and show you how to set up a safety net so you never have to scramble like this again.
Check whether recall will work for your account
Before you try anything, you need to know one thing. Email recall in Outlook only works if both you and the recipient have Microsoft 365 work or school accounts in the same organization. That means recall works for emails you send to coworkers and classmates on the same company or university email system. It does not work if you sent the email to a Gmail address, a Yahoo address, or anyone outside your organization. If you have a personal account (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com), recall is not available to you at all. Skip to step 5 for an alternative that might help.
Heads up: The recipient must not have opened the message yet. If they already read it, recall will fail and they may even get a notification that you tried to pull it back.
Open the message from your Sent folder
Open Outlook and go to your Sent Items folder in the left sidebar. Find the email you want to recall and double-click it to open it in its own separate window. This part matters. You need the message open in a full window, not just previewed in the reading pane. If you single-click and only see it in the preview, the recall option will not appear. This works the same way in New Outlook, Classic Outlook, and Outlook on the Web. The next steps differ depending on which version you are using.
Recall the message in New Outlook or Outlook Web
With the sent message open in its own window, look at the ribbon (the toolbar at the top). You should see a Recall Message button. Click it. Outlook will ask you to confirm. Click OK and Outlook starts trying to pull the email back. You will get a Message Recall Report in your inbox, usually within 30 seconds, telling you whether it worked or not. If the recall is not instant, do not panic. Outlook retries for up to 24 hours before marking a recall as failed.
Good to know: You can also recall emails from Outlook on your phone. The mobile apps for Android and iOS support message recall as of 2025.
Recall the message in Classic Outlook
If you are on the older Classic Outlook for Windows, the process is slightly different. With the sent message open in its own window, click the Message tab in the ribbon. Then click Actions (you may need to click the three dots or the "More" arrow to find it). Select Recall This Message from the dropdown. You will see two options. Choose Delete unread copies of this message to simply remove it. Or choose Delete unread copies and replace with a new message if you want to send a corrected version instead. Pick one and click OK.
Good to know: Not sure which version you have? If your Outlook has a toggle switch in the top-right corner that says "New Outlook," you are on Classic. If there is no toggle, you are already on the new version.
Use Undo Send if recall is not available
If you have a personal Outlook account or you sent the email to someone outside your organization, recall will not work. But there is a smaller safety net called Undo Send. In New Outlook for Windows, go to Settings (the gear icon), then Mail, then Compose and reply. Look for Undo send and set the delay to up to 10 seconds. On Outlook.com in the browser, you will find the same option under Settings. With Undo Send turned on, every email you send gets a brief delay. A small "Undo" banner appears at the bottom of the screen right after you hit Send. Click it and the email never leaves your outbox. The window is short. You get 5 to 10 seconds depending on your settings. But for catching a typo in the recipient line or a missing attachment, that is usually enough.
Set up a send delay to catch mistakes early
If you regularly send emails you wish you could take back, a longer safety net is smarter than hoping recall works after the fact. In Classic Outlook, you can create a rule that delays every outgoing email by up to 120 minutes. Go to File, then Manage Rules & Alerts. Click New Rule, select Apply rule on messages I send, click Next without adding conditions (so it applies to all messages), then check defer delivery by a number of minutes. Set your preferred delay. In New Outlook and Outlook on the Web, the built-in Schedule Send feature lets you pick a specific delivery time for individual messages. Click the arrow next to the Send button and choose when you want the email to go out.
Good to know: A 1 or 2 minute delay on all outgoing email is enough to catch most regrettable sends without noticeably slowing down your workflow.
The honest truth about email recall is that it is not a guaranteed undo button. It works well inside organizations where everyone is on Microsoft 365, but it has real limits once an email leaves that bubble. The better strategy is prevention. A short send delay of even 10 seconds gives you a window to catch the kind of mistakes that keep you up at night. Set it up once and you will probably never need the recall feature at all. And if you do try a recall and it fails, do not overthink it. A quick, honest follow-up message almost always fixes the situation better than silence.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
No. Email recall only works when both the sender and recipient are on Microsoft 365 or Exchange accounts within the same organization. If you sent an email to someone on Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, or any other provider, recall cannot do anything. Your only option at that point is to send a follow-up message.
You will usually get a Message Recall Report within about 30 seconds. If the recipient's mailbox is not immediately reachable, Outlook keeps retrying for up to 24 hours before marking the recall as failed. For messages sent to many recipients, the status for each person may take a few minutes to show up.
Yes. As of 2025, message recall works from Outlook on Android and iOS, in addition to Classic Outlook, New Outlook, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the Web. Open the message from your Sent folder and look for the Recall option.
Recall pulls back a message that has already been delivered to the recipient's mailbox. It only works for Microsoft 365 work and school accounts within the same organization. Undo Send is a short delay (5 to 10 seconds) that stops the email from being sent in the first place. Undo Send works for all account types, but you only have a few seconds to act.
It depends. If the recall succeeds before they open the message, the email simply disappears from their inbox and they may never know it existed. If the recall fails because they already read it, they will likely see a notification that a recall was attempted. There is no way to silently attempt a recall on a message someone has already opened.
Yes. Recall works on a per-recipient basis. If you sent an email to ten coworkers and three of them already opened it, the recall will succeed for the seven who have not opened it yet and fail for the three who have. You will get a separate status for each recipient in your Message Recall Report.