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Can I stop or 'un-send' an email I sent by mistake?

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Summary: Once you hit that "send" button, there is no way to stop your email from being sent, even if it's to the wrong person.

I wrote an email from my yahoo email account and sent to the wrong email address in Europe. Is it any way that I can retrieve the email I sent from the wrong email address, delete it before the wrong recipient can read my email?

Unfortunately, the news is not good.

The answer is quite simply, "no". Once it's sent, it's sent.

The thing to remember here is that once an email leaves your outbox, you lose all control over it. And I do mean all control over it. You cannot stop it, nor can you change it. You cannot track whether it's been read or not. You cannot tell if it's been forwarded or deleted. You can't even know whether it's been received at all unless you hear from the recipient.

So the moral of the story is simple: make sure you really mean it when you hit "Send".

Article C2149 - August 7, 2004

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Recent Comments
48 Comments

this is the biggest bunch of crap technology to date in this world.. there always should have been parameters set in place where an email can be pulled back if necesarry..with all of the services..

I accidentally sent a note talking about how ghetto fabulous my gym was to a private client of mine and sent it to my sister by mistake and to a black girl oh crap!!!

emails can be good but overall the fact that you cant pull it back is total crap...

hopefully people can have a heart and understand!!! we make mistakes

Posted by: maximumbody at November 29, 2008 2:07 PM

Hi!

I have a email that is stuck in my outbox and I have been trying to cancel it but it won't cancel as it is busy sending it - is there a way of canceling it?

Thanks for your help,

Carmen

Sounds like this article: How can I stop a message in my Outlook outbox that won't send? (Lots of good thoughts in the comments there as well.)
- Leo
05-Jan-2009
Posted by: Carmen at January 5, 2009 2:36 AM

An email I sent with a typo was delayed. I just got notice in my mailbox. Can I cancel the send?

Posted by: Juliana at June 16, 2009 6:03 AM

If you use a software you can track your email but not recall it. Except if you are using the same exchange server.

No. You cannot reliably track email.
Leo
26-Sep-2009

Posted by: detydfg at September 25, 2009 2:02 PM

Actually, you CAN track whether an e-mail has been read or not...pretty reliably. At least it has been 100% reliable for me so far. I use www.didtheyreadit.com. You get 10 free emails then you have to pay for the service.

Posted by: kelli at February 15, 2010 9:30 PM

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