Argh! Unsending Email?!

[Scarlett]

I have accidentally sent an email to the wrong person. It was a long silly chat with a friend, full of swearing and stupidity. He asked if I could find something out about borrowing a musical instrument and I suggested he email this lady- and accidentally copied her in rather than just pasting her email address to him. She is someone I work with although I don't know her personally, and I need to be in her good books as she is in authority to me. AOL say there is no way of unsending an email from them, although I could have done it from the work system, had I sent it from there. I did immediately email the lady and say "Sorry, I accidentally sent that to you with no explanation. Is it possible to borrow an instrument" etc but I still feel terrible. Is there anything else I can do?!

[AlwaysConfused]

As far as I'm aware, no. My 'smart phone' likes to send texts to people I've purely mentioned in a text. I've had to try to dig myself out of a few situations in the past. I'm extra careful now. In future, send the e-mail, saying that you will send a follow up message with the attachment/ link

[Buenchico]

You can recall an internal email at work because your system there uses a Microsoft Exchange Server (or something similar on another operating system). So the place that you initially send the mail to and the place that the recipient picks it up from are one and the same.

However you sent your mail off to AOL's server and they immediately passed it on to whichever server is designated by the last bit of the (unintended) recipient's email address. The transfer of email between different servers is always 'push only' ; i.e. it's not technically possible to 'pull' an email back.

So there's no technological solution to your problem. However, if you've got the lady's phone number I'd regard it as far better to speak to her to apologise than to simply send another email.

[Scarlett]

Thanks. The email was sent from AOL desktop software on my home PC so I'm fairly sure there's no recall available. I did phone them but they knew even less than I did. Buen- the only reason I knew it had gone to the lady was that I got an email back saying she was on leave til 23rd Feb- clearly she has booked leave for her child's half term. So I can't contact her by phone, and she may well check her work emails from home. I have no way of knowing! I tinkered with the idea of friending her on Facebook but that seemed weird, as I don't really know her.

[Mosaic]

I'm a bit taken aback that you'd consider work email as an option for sending a personal email especially one full of bad language.

[tamborine]

Send a follow up email, humbly apologising & grovel grovel grovel.....good luck

[Scarlett]

Mosaic- my email was home. My friends was work. He's never given me a private email address so that's the one we've always used.

[AliceTickband]

Try doughnuts...... It would work for me :)

[Jackdaw33]

I suppose it's a bit like the old days when. as soon as you had dropped the letter into the box you realise it was the wrong letter in the wrong envelope. At least then you could hang around the post box till the man came to empty it and plead with him to return it. Unfortunately, no second chances with email. That's why I always double check everything before clicking SEND.

[Buenchico]

My email service gives you a countdown to sending, so that you've got a few seconds in which you change your mind. (It's set to 3 seconds by default but you can change it to something longer if you prefer). It can be very useful if you suddenly notice that the recipient's name isn't the one that you intended ;-)
http://www.gmx.co.uk/

[Ellipsis]

Gmail also has an "undo send" feature based on a countdown:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en

But that won't help now.

One option is to get in to work early on Feb 23 - with a suitable gift e.g. doughnuts - and meet the lady at her desk; say what you've done, apologise and ask if you can go into her email and delete it without her reading it as that would make you feel so much better.

If she's already read it then you can apologise again, in person.

Either way, give her the doughnuts, with a line like "These are to remind you of me" ...

[MARJORYGOOD]

I have sent the wrong email to the wrong people. Yes Grovel, pity you can't undo it. I feel for you