How to Take Back an Email in Gmail within 30 Seconds

We’ve all made the mistake of sending an email we shouldn’t have sent. Whether we’ve sent it to the wrong person, made a really bad spelling error, or just said something we shouldn’t have, we all wish we could take back some emails we’ve sent out.

The good news is that Google has implemented an “Undo” feature. The bad news is that the default setting for the feature only allows you to “Undo” the email within a 5 second time frame. If you’ve already sent out an email and missed the 5 second window, unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to take back that email.

However, if you’d like to increase the 5 second window to 30 seconds so that you have more time to recover your mistake in the future, we’ll show you how.

How to Adjust the Undo Feature to 30 Seconds in Gmail

1. Login to your Gmail account
2. Click on the Settings icon in the upper right hand corner of Gmail

3. Click on “See all Settings“

4. Under “General” settings click on the “Send Cancellation Period Seconds” box.

5. Select the time window you’d prefer from the dropdown. Your options will be 5, 10, 20, and 30 second windows.

6. Select “Save Changes”

How to Undo an Email Sent in Gmail

Now that you’ve increased the time window on the Undo feature, you will have plenty of time to Undo an email when you make a mistake. Here’s how:

1. Send your Email. Once you’ve sent an email, you’ll see a popup box appear at the bottom of your screen.
2. Click “Undo”