At the time of this posting I just might be a “smidge” behind the news feed gods given the fact I woke up this morning to a wall of articles all about this lab turned live feature of having the 5- to 30-second option to undo send on that precious email I toiled for hours over and still can't get quite right. 🙂
Seriously, I often say that there are moments in life (and they come a bit too often some days) when, “send is not your friend, save yourself”.
The long story short is that this popular feature has been an experiment on Google Labs for quite some time, but the Google powers that be have caught on to make it all official like for those of us, aka moi, who just don't geek out in the “lab” everyday.
If you're a Google Apps Administrator for your small or online biz and want to get in on the Google update action before mainstream media gives you the one-two punch in your Twitter feed, then check out this feed and subscribe. Wouldn't it be nice to tell your users something before they lay the 411 out to you? You'll be a Google Apps hero! Or… well, not. (long pause, awkward silence)
Ready to get in on the exciting unsend action? Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of your Gmail inbox. Click on Settings and under the General tab scroll down until you see your “Undo Send” feature. Click to enable and then choose the number of seconds you want to deem as your “cancellation period”.
And, for the love of hot toast with butter and strawberry preserves, don't get all cranky pants when this new feature said it would give you 30-seconds to take it all back and it says, “too late” after what you deem to only be one second.
Here's a big high five to personal responsibility!!!
It's only been in test for years and just now getting to the rest of the world on June 22, 2015. I'm sure there's still plenty of code kinks to work out with this life-saving, job-saving, marriage-saving tool (yes, I have actually read comments where this is what people say)…. so be patient!
The Bottom Line
I totally get why this feature is wanted. I have plenty of moments where I wish I could take something back I said or did. I'd like to say that these days it's mainly those pesky typos I couldn't weed out at 3am when I could barely see and shouldn't have been working in the first place… but, not quite that “balanced” yet. #practicemakesprogress
But, maybe – just maybe, we love the real idea that we can have instant do-overs when something that needed to sit for a minute was gone in a second. If this is the case, and I have found myself in a state of remorse plenty, just do what I do and remember in times of high passion —- “send is not your friend, save yourself.”
So, have you ever had a moment where you wish the undo send email for Gmail had been a “lifesaving” option for you? Let's dish about in the comments!
