Introduction
You’ve sent an Outlook email but realised it’s to the wrong recipient (or it contains incorrect information?) and now you want to recall it to avoid the embarrassing “That email wasn’t meant for you!” email afterwards? Yeah I’ve been there and here’s how I recalled the email on the Outlook app for windows.
Note: This can only be done using the Outlook client/app, it can’t be done using Outlook online (however I have been told by a Microsoft employee that they are in development of this feature for the web app but there is currently no ETA); if the email has been read it won’t recall it; if it’s been sent to a lot of people I’ve not had much success in the times I’ve had to use it in recalling them all! It’s also worth noting people often ask “can you recall an email from only one recipient”, to which the answer is no, it will recall it from all of the recipients.
Recalling the email
So you’ve sent the wrong email by accident or perhaps you’ve sent an email to the wrong recipient, what you need to do is go to your ‘sent‘ folder and ‘double click‘ the email you’ve sent by mistake!
![Outlook sent emails Image of Outlook sent emails](https://technologybunker.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/double-click-outlook-sent-mail.png?w=1022)
Next up you’ll want to go to ‘message‘, ‘actions‘ and then ‘recall this message‘.
![sent email open Image of a sent email with message, actions and recall message highlighted.](https://technologybunker.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/recall-outlook-email.png?w=1024)
Now you just confirm what you want to do with the wrong email. I personally just do the top one which is selected and then write the email out again afterwards. If you are recalling this email from a lot of people I would untick the ‘Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient‘ as this will really fill up your inbox (I know)! Otherwise if you need to know if it’s been successful keep it ticked.
If you want to recall the email and replace it with a new one, tick the second option but I recommend against this because when recalling an email, time is everything.
![recall message box Image of the recall this message box, which gives options on how you would like to recall the message.](https://technologybunker.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/recall-message-message.png?w=382)
That’s it, the last step is hoping that they haven’t read it and it get’s deleted!
Quick steps
Open the sent email in the Outlook client > Actions > Recall this message