How to recall and replace sent emails in Outlook?

It is quite a common phenomenon where users regret sending emails to someone in a hurry without recognizing the actual requirements of the recipient. But can we undo this once the email is sent? Although we can inform the recipient personally or by sending another email with an apology, there is more that you can do on your part to look it less absurd if you are an Outlook user. Let us find out how.

What is Message Recall and Replace in Outlook?

Message Recall and Replace feature in the Microsoft Outlook application allows the users to undo the action on a sent email by deleting it or replacing it with a new email. The Message Recall option retracts the email received by the recipient but not yet opened by him or her. Meanwhile, the Message Replace option allows sending another email in place of the recalled email.

Conditions to apply Recall and Replace

It is crucial to understand some conditions to utilize the Message Recall and Replace actions on Outlook for your sent emails.

• Both sender and recipient must have a Microsoft 365 or Exchange email account in the same organization
• The original sent email must be in the recipient’s Inbox folder, and he must not have read it
• The recipient must not have opened the message
• The received email must not be processed by set rule, spam filter, or add-ins
• This feature is available on Windows systems only and not on Mac systems or Outlook on the Web
• A message with Azure Information Protection cannot be recalled

Process to Recall and/or Replace a sent email in Outlook

Here is the complete process to recall or/and replace a sent email in the Microsoft Outlook application.

1. On your Outlook application, move to the Sent Items
2. Click on the email message which you want to recall.Note: Opening the sent email message is a must to perform the recall action on it.
3. Click on the Message tab on the top, click on the Actions option, and select Recall This Message from the drop-down list.
   Or click on the Message tab, click More commands…., click Actions and then select the Recall This Message option.
   
4. A dialogue box, namely Recall This Message, will get opened. Here select the first option Delete unread copies of this message to recall the message, select the checkbox saying Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient to get notified about the status of the action, and click OK.
5. If you want to recall the message and sent another in its place, select the second option Delete unread copies and replace with a new message, select the checkbox for the result notification and click OK.
6. The message window with the sent email text will get opened. You can apply the modifications or enter a completely new message or link attachments and then click the Send option to send that email again to the recipient.
7. The earlier message is recalled and replaced by a fresh one.

How to check Recall and Replace actions are successful?

Now you can check whether you have performed it right or it gets successful on your first try.

Whether your recall and replace action is successful or not depends on the email recipient’s settings. Let us know about these scenarios.

1. If the recipient has selected the option Automatically process requests and responses to meeting request and polls under the Tracking section of the Outlook Mails option (File>Options>Mail), then after the recall action, if we assume that the recipient does not read the original message, it will get deleted with the notification to the recipient.
   But in case the option is Automatically.. under the Tracing section is not selected, both original and recalled messages would appear in the recipient’s mailbox. So if he opens the original email first, the recall will get failed with both messages’ availability. But if he opens the recalled message first, the original one will get deleted, and the recall will be successful with a notification message.
2. Another case is where the recipient has recalled and replaced the sent message. Also, he had applied a rule to move the original message to the other folder and recall to the same Inbox folder or another folder (different folders for recall) then, the original message would conclude that the recall has failed irrespective of the reading status by the recipient which means both messages are available to the recipient.
3. When both original and recalled messages are moved to the same folder, and if the recalled message is opened first, the original will get deleted; but if the original message is opened first, the recall and replace would fail.

Cannot open an email? Check this out

Recall and Replace feature in the Outlook application is quite useful for every user who sent wrong emails content in a hurry or accidentally; but there are still more hardships related to the email client messages like the user is unable to open an email in Outlook. It mostly happens when the OST file is corrupted, and for heavy OST files, the manual Inbox Repair Utility will not work at all. Therefore, the best way to eliminate corruption in all types of OST files in the quickest time is to follow the OST Recovery tool that recovers Outlook OST files to save them to PST more other formats.