Google is notorious for tagging a product as a beta for way longer than necessary. Gmail launched on 1st April in 2004 but it enjoyed the beta status all the way till July 2009. By then, Gmail was already one of the most popular email services around. Now, a small yet essential feature has broken that record. After being in beta for around 6 years (it was added in 2009, about the same time Gmail came out of beta), Google is now confident enough to bring the Undo Send feature out of beta.
Yes, you can now have a 5-30 seconds window to reliably stop an email from being sent out. If only I knew about this feature when I was in high school. It could have saved me some embarrassment. But then again, a 16-year-old isn’t exactly capable of doing deep self-evaluation in mere 30 seconds.
So this is how it works. Instead of being stowed away in the experimental Labs section, the Undo Send feature now lives proudly in the second-half of the General section in Settings. To get there, click the Gear icon and choose Settings.
Check the Enable Undo Send option (it’s disabled by default) to enable the feature and from the drop-down menu choose the time frame for shameful remission. It’s 5 seconds by default, but I highly recommend you increase it to the longest period, which right now is 30 seconds. Now, when you send an email, a pop-up with the Undo link will show up. Clicking it will stop the email and you’ll be brought back to the compose box with the latest draft. Good luck for your next attempt!