How to Recall an Email in Outlook
Recall or replace a sent email in New Outlook, Classic Outlook, Outlook on the Web, or Outlook for Mac, read the Message Recall Report, and turn on Undo Send or a send delay for the next email.
You will end up knowing whether recall can work for the email you just sent, how to pull it back or replace it in your version of Outlook, how to read the Message Recall Report, and how to set up Undo Send or a send delay for the next email.
Recall works only between Microsoft 365 work or school accounts, and it deletes the message from the recipient's mailbox after delivery. Step 1 is the check, so do it first.
We checked every menu path and limit against Microsoft's support pages, Microsoft Learn, and the Exchange team's post on cloud-based recall in October 2026. We did not test a recall on a live mailbox.
Check whether recall will work for your account
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 Microsoft 365. It also fails for another Microsoft 365 organization unless that organization's admin has allowed recalls from yours. If you have a personal account (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com), Microsoft says recall is not available. Skip to step 5. There are two more catches on Outlook for Windows. Recall does not work if Outlook is running in Online mode, and it does not work if you have more than one Exchange account set up in the same profile.
Heads up: Microsoft's own pages disagree about messages the recipient has already opened. Its support page, and the options in Classic Outlook, still say only unread copies can be recalled. The Exchange team's post on cloud-based recall, rewritten in September 2026, says recall can now pull back messages that were already read, and that an organization's admin can turn that off. Send the recall as soon as you notice the mistake, and do not assume an opened message is out of reach.
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 window. This works the same way in New Outlook, Classic Outlook, Outlook on the Web, and Outlook for Mac. In Classic Outlook, Microsoft says a message you only select, so that it shows in the reading pane, cannot be recalled. Do not skip the double-click. In Outlook for Mac, the folder is called Sent. The next steps differ by version.
Recall the message in New Outlook, Outlook on the Web, or Outlook for Mac
With the sent message open in its own window, select Recall Message on the ribbon, then select OK to confirm. Shortly after, a Message Recall Report arrives in your inbox. Select the link in it to see whether the recall has succeeded, is pending, or failed. If it says pending, leave it. Microsoft keeps retrying for up to 24 hours before it marks a recall as failed. In Outlook for Mac, select Recall on the ribbon, then select OK. You can also Control-click the message and choose Recall. Microsoft's Mac recall page says this needs Outlook for Mac 16.94 or later and does not work in legacy Outlook for Mac. If the Recall button is missing, add it by customizing the toolbar.
Good to know: Recall has an age limit. Microsoft Learn says messages up to 365 days old can be recalled by default, that an admin can set the limit anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 years, and that a message older than the limit gets you a notice that it is too old to recall.
Recall the message in Classic Outlook
In Classic Outlook for Windows, the recall command sits in a different place. With the sent message open in its own window, click the Message tab in the ribbon. On the Classic Ribbon, go to the Move group, click More Move Actions, and select Recall This Message. On the Simplified Ribbon, click More commands (...), point to Actions, and select Recall This Message. You will see two options, both worded around unread copies (step 1 explains what that wording covers). Choose Delete unread copies of this message to remove it, or Delete unread copies and replace with a new message to send a corrected version. Select OK. If you chose to replace it, write the new message and select Send. Microsoft says the report usually arrives less than 30 seconds later, with the subject "Message Recall Report for message" followed by the original subject. Select View Message Recall Report to open it in your browser, and sign in if asked. If Recall This Message is not there, Microsoft says you probably do not have an Exchange account or your organization has not made the feature available. A message protected by Azure Information Protection cannot be recalled from Classic Outlook.
Good to know: Not sure which version you have? If you see a File tab at the top left, you are on Classic Outlook. If you see a Settings gear icon at the top right instead, you are on New Outlook.
Turn on Undo Send for the next email
If you have a personal Outlook account or you sent the email to someone outside your organization, recall will not work, and nothing in Outlook can pull that message back. Send a short follow-up instead (closing below). Then turn on Undo Send, which holds each message for a few seconds after you select Send so you can cancel it. In New Outlook for Windows, go to Settings, then Mail, then Compose and reply, and set Undo send. Microsoft says the undo option shows for up to 10 seconds there. On Outlook.com, go to Settings, then Mail, then Compose. Under Undo send, choose how long to wait, up to 30 seconds, and select Save. Once it is on, an Undo prompt appears at the bottom of the message list each time you send. Select it before the time runs out and the message is not sent. The window is short, so it catches what you notice right away, such as a wrong recipient or a missing attachment. For a longer window, use step 6.
Set up a send delay to catch mistakes early
A delay rule holds messages longer than Undo Send can, so you have time to open one again before it leaves. 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, and click Next. Leave the conditions blank, click Next, and select Yes when Outlook asks whether to apply the rule to every message you send. Check defer delivery by a number of minutes, select a number of, and enter the minutes, up to 120. Click through to the last screen, name the rule, check Turn on this rule, and select Finish. Each message then waits in the Outbox for that time. In New Outlook and Outlook on the Web, the built-in Schedule Send feature lets you pick a delivery time for one message at a time. Select the dropdown next to Send, select Schedule send, and pick a time. The message waits in the Drafts folder until then, and you can open it there and select Cancel send.
Good to know: We recommend a 1- or 2-minute delay. It is long enough to catch a wrong recipient or a missing attachment after you send, and short enough that every message still goes out within a couple of minutes.
If the Message Recall Report says the recall failed, send a short follow-up to the same recipients with the correction. If no report arrives, ask your IT admin to check that messages from Office365Reports@microsoft.com are not blocked, because that is the address Microsoft sends the reports from. If the recall command is missing or grayed out, go back to the conditions in step 1 and the version tip in step 4. Then set up the safety net for the next email. Turn on Undo Send in New Outlook or Outlook.com (step 5), or add the delay rule in Classic Outlook (step 6).
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
No. Email recall only works when the recipient is on Microsoft 365, either in your own organization or in one whose admin has allowed recalls from yours. 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.
Microsoft says the Message Recall Report usually arrives in less than 30 seconds in Classic Outlook, and within a few minutes in the cloud-based recall the other versions use. If the recipient's mailbox is not immediately reachable, Outlook keeps retrying for up to 24 hours before marking the recall as failed. Microsoft says the status for a message with up to a few hundred recipients can take up to 5 minutes, and up to 30 minutes for tens of thousands.
Yes, in Outlook for Android and iOS. The Exchange team's post on cloud-based recall lists both apps, along with Classic Outlook, New Outlook, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the Web. Microsoft's support pages give no steps for the phone apps, so if you cannot find Recall there, start it from Outlook on the Web or a desktop version instead. The conditions in step 1 still apply.
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, inside your organization or in one that has allowed recalls from yours. Undo Send is a short delay that stops the email from being sent in the first place, up to 10 seconds in New Outlook for Windows and up to 30 seconds on Outlook.com. It only helps if you turned it on before you sent, and Classic Outlook uses the delay rule in step 6 instead.
It depends on your organization's settings. Microsoft's documentation for cloud-based recall says recipient notifications are off by default, so by default a successful recall removes the message without telling the recipient. An admin can switch notifications on, either for every recalled message or only for ones that had already been read. And if the recall fails, the recipient still has the original. Treat a recall as something the recipient might find out about rather than something guaranteed to be invisible.
Yes. Recall works on a per-recipient basis. Each copy is deleted from each mailbox separately, so a recall can succeed for some of the recipients and fail for others. You will get a separate status for each recipient in your Message Recall Report. Forwarded copies are a separate case. Microsoft says a message forwarded automatically to another mailbox in the same organization can be recalled, but not one forwarded by hand, by an inbox rule, or outside the organization.