Recalling Sent Messages through Outlook

Limitations:

• Messages sent to SMTP mailboxes cannot be recalled.
• Both the original sender and the recipients must be using Outlook. Message recall will probably not succeed with e-mail clients other than Outlook.
• If the recipient is on a different e-mail server, that remote server must recognize and allow message recall.
• The message recall must occur before the recipient reads the sent message. If the message is already read, the recall will fail.
• If the recipient reads the "recall" message before reading the original message, then the original message will be deleted.

When the message recall is attempted, a secondary message is sent to the recipients. If a recipient has not yet read the original but does read the secondary message, then the original messages is deleted or replaced with a new message (provided the sender indicated that he wants to "delete unread copies of [the original] message replace it with a new one".

If the recipient has already read the original message, he will receive a secondary message with "Recalled:" prefixed to the original subject line. The contents of this secondary message is

display-name wishes to recall the message, "original-subject"

where "display-name" is the display name of the original message sender and "original-subject" is the subject line of the original message. (If the sender wanted to replace the original message with a new message, then the recipient receives a third message: the replacement message).

To "recall" a message sent through Outlook...

1. Launch Outlook if not already done so.
2. Open the Sent Items folder.
3. Double-click the original message that is to be recalled.
4. In the Actions menu, select "Recall this message".
5. Check the checkbox labeled "Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient".
6. In the resulting pop-up window, either select either "Delete unread copies of this message" or select "Delete unread copies of this message and replace it with a new message".
7. Click OK.
8. If the second choice of step 6 was selected, a window for sending a new message will appear which contains the original list of recipients, the original subject line, and the original message body. Changes can be made to any of items before sending the "replacement" message.
9. If the recipient reads the recall message before he reads the original message, then the original message is deleted and if a replacement message was sent, it will replace the original message