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Gmail Now Letting You Un-Send Regrettable E-Mails

by Terrence O'Brien on March 20, 2009 at 03:26 PM

Gmail Lets You Un-Send Regrettable E-Mails

Back in October 2008, Google brought Mail Goggles to its Gmail labs, a feature that required you to finish a series of math problems in an allotted amount of time before it let you send an e-mail. This way, if you got a little too happy at happy hour, you'd find a barrier between you and that lengthy e-mail to your ex. Call it EWI-prevention (E-Mailing While Intoxicated).

The problem with Mail Goggles is that it wasn't going to stop you from sending regrettable e-mails while you were sober -- and what happens if being drunk turns you into a math whiz? The ideal solution would be to give us less tactful users the chance to undo that sent message before anyone else reads it. If Microsoft Outlook had such a feature, it would have helped us last a bit longer at that last IT job we had.

Leave it to Google, though, to bring to life the greatest e-mail feature nobody ever knew they wanted. If you go into Gmail Labs (the beaker icon up top, or the Labs tab under settings), you can enable "undo send," which will hold any e-mail you send in a queue for five seconds before actually sending it on to the intended recipient. This brilliant little service gives you a chance to hit the "undo" link at the top any time during that five seconds and stop that message from going through.

This is quite the breakthrough for those of us prone to sending ill-advised, angry, swear-laden e-mails (of which you can see some of the most unfortunate examples in the gallery below). Thanks, Google. [From: Download Squad and CNET]

Death of Print

    Elle Girl
    In April 2006, Elle Girl's print edition was closed down, but the Web site lives on at ellegirl.com.

    CosmoGirl
    Though it will be folded into Seventeen magazine, the teen version of Cosmopolitan will publish its last print issue in December 2008. It will live on at CosmoGirl.com.

    Christian Science Monitor
    Founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, this venerable paper will move all its daily content to the Web starting in 2009, though it will still publish a weekly print version.

    Radar Magazine
    Was it too snarky for its own good? We'll never know, but this modern-day successor to '80s-era Spy magazine shut down in October. AMI, owner of the National Enquirer, bought RadarOnline.com, however, which will focus on celebrity gossip a la TMZ.com.

    US News and World Report
    Once a serious competitor to Time and Newsweek, US News and World Report is now best known for its College guides, which it will continue to publish. The weekly newsmagazine, however, will be turned into a monthly, and all daily operations are moving to the Web at usnews.com.




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Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, e-mail, face loss, FaceLoss, gmail, top, undo

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