Gmail Improves "Undo Send" | Hacker News Reader

Gmail Improves "Undo Send"

googlesystem.blogspot.com

61 pointsbunglebooz17 comments

Personally, the "Undo Send" feature is one of my all-time favorites in Gmail. A lot of people are comparing it to an outbox, but while the two are functionally similar, they are psychologically different. The undo send simply gives you a few extra seconds to re-read your email and catch any small errors before sending.

When the feature first launched, I was worried I would eventually adjust to it, and stop re-reading emails before clicking "send". So far, that has not happened - it's effectively a psychological trick that continues to make my emails better proof-read.

The blog post makes it confusing about what was actually improved.

Gmail just increased the time you have to "undo". Before the max was 10 seconds. Now you can choose up to 30 seconds.

yeah... poor use of the word 'constantly'

Unlimited undo to Gmail users until the E-mail is open would make sense too.

This point was raised when Gmail originally launched the feature. The problem is that it would essentially act as a read receipt, which is a privacy concern.

Plus it would add to confusion - you see it in your inbox (unread) and then you don't and wonder what happened. With Exchange you can do this and it usually just gets ugly in practice.

It would also be wired for us BlackBerry users, where we get the email instantly, and then it wouldn't be in the inbox when you check it on your PC.

It would have to be based on any interaction the receiver has with the email, including viewing the inbox. However, if we're already worried about that level of privacy, even that change would do no good since it would mean the sender would know when the receiver checked their inbox.

In other words, the email may or may not exist until you observe it? Brilliant, they should market it as the first commercially viable quantum cloud.

Heisenmail.com would be a great name for it

Also, this would be impossible when mailing anyone who checks their GMail using POP, IMAP, or Exchange ActiveSync.

Revolutionary.

An outbox would be pretty nice.

What's wrong with the already existing Drafts feature?

I tend to use Drafts more for emails that aren't actually completed, and an outbox for emails that are completed but with one last chance for me to look them over before they go out.

You can add labels to emails in the Drafts folder, so you could have an "Outbox" label if you wanted to.

An interesting idea for a web-based email site. I don't think I've seen one (not that it really makes any sense, but I can see how some people would like it). Closest you have are drafts, which are pretty darned close, but it's not quite the same, no.

I still fall on the "don't send it unless you mean to send it" side, however. My outbox is only used when I don't have internet access.

Offline Gmail certainly has an Outbox. The main reason being you'll generally have no internet connection or a very flaky one. By product of it is that yu can indeed cancel emails after sending them. It wouldn't be a bad idea to use an Outbox for some people. Gmail could offer it as a labs feature and whenever you request or end your session/logout it would send your email... Removing email from an account once sent like above seems like a very bad user experience quirk.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com