Save yourself from sending out embarrassing emails

It all happens to the best of us. We send out something and we fail to attach the all-important file that was the reason for the email, or we send something out that we haven’t thought of clearly at first (like a drunken email to the ex, perhaps?).

I can imagine people clicking on the Send button absentmindedly, then mid-yawn they realize what they’ve done. I also would love to think they went “Holy sh*t! OMG what do I do? What do I do?!” while hyperventilating and all. Running around the room. You rush to close the browser, or pull the plug from your computer, or even turn off the internet, but it’s an exercise in futility. Gmail’s so fast that it almost always wins the race.

Anyway.

If you haven’t heard, Gmail now has a way to prevent that very scary situation outlined above. In fact they’re giving you five – yes you read it right folks, five – seconds to click on the new Undo link so you can save yourself from embarrassment.

Why 5 seconds? Michael Leggett, User Experience Designer at Google has a theory that 5 seconds would be enough time to catch most of those regrettable emails. And don’t worry – if you close Gmail or your browser crashes in those few seconds, your message will still be sent.

To be able to turn on that Undo Send feature that has everybody talking, just log on to your Gmail account, and go over to the Settings link on the upper right corner. Once you have the Settings panel on, just look for the Labs tab, and click on it. Or you can click here. Scroll down and look for the “Undo Send” part, activate it, and save.

To use this awesome new feature, just try to send an email to anybody. And you’ll see the Undo link after clicking Send. You have 5 seconds to click on it, or else your email is sent to be seen forever.

Know what I’d like to see? A timer counting down the seconds until Gmail sends your message out.

Anyway, what do you think of this new feature? I’m loving it a lot, but I’d like to hear from you guys.