If you’ve ever sent an email and realized it was missing important details, had too much detail, or was just a little too emotional, you’ve probably wished for a way to delete it from the recipient’s inbox before they ever see it. Luckily, you can recover an email if you use Microsoft Outlook, but you first need to know how to recover it, and when you can even do it, since it’s not always an option.

How you recall the email in Outlook depends on whether you're using a newer version of Microsoft's classic Outlook. In a newer version, look for "Sent Items" in the left pane, then double-click the message you want to recall. You'll see "Recall Message" in the toolbar (it's the large letter icon with two arrows pointing to the left). Click that, then click "OK" and wait for a message recall report to appear in your inbox, acting as a confirmation. That message will contain a link, and if you click it, you'll see whether your recall succeeded, failed, or is still pending.

If you're using a classic version of Outlook, the steps are similar. You still go to "Sent Items" and open the message by double-clicking on it, but then you look at your classic ribbon, find the "Messages" tab and select "Actions" and then "Recall This Message". (If you're using a simplified ribbon, it's under "More Commands…" when you open the "Message" tab.)

The cool thing about recalled messages in Outlook is that if your recipient hasn’t opened it, they won’t see it. It just disappears from their inbox. But there’s a couple of not-so-cool things going on here, too. For it to work, you have to send (and recall) an email to someone with a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Exchange email account, you have to have one of those accounts, and you have to be in the same organization. For example, you can’t recall a message to or from a Gmail account.