Abort Sent Gmail Messages With Undo Send

One more day, one more Gmail Labs feature!

If the last one (Youtube, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp previews) was all about improving the user experience by saving time and providing some extra eye-candy, this one has a very specific objective. It’s just a big red “panic” button. Well, it’s not really red or big, it’s just a small Undo link, but it sure can avoid some problems.

Have you ever sent a message and immediately noticed an error? Like a forgotten attachment, a terrible typo right there on the subject or there’s someone in the To: field that absolutely shouldn’t receive the email? Up until now, there was nothing you could do. As soon as the Send button was pressed, there was no going back.

Well by enabling this “Undo Send” feature, sent email will be on hold for 5 seconds before being actually sent, and you can press the Undo link to stop it. This goes hand in hand with the “Mail Goggles” feature, which requires you to complete a few math problems before any mail is sent, to avoid those late night inebriated-induced messages.

As an improvement, though, the delay should be configurable.