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Gmail Adds 5 Second Send Rule
theatrecade was one of a few folks to note that Google Labs has added the
five-second rule to email. Once upon a time this rule only applied to delicious foodstuffs dropped on the floor, but at long last you can change your mind on that email to your boss or ex. We shall see peace in our lifetimes.
I use Thunderbird, which has an "are you sure you want to send?" confirmation by default. Since I use the ctrl-return hot key to send, I usually just blast through this message so at one stage, I switched it off.
However, I found that in the half second between pressing ctrl-return and return to confirm, my brain was actually doing some checking to make sure I should send that message.
I sent a reply to a whole message board asking for more information about a job - not a disaster, but not what I had intended. I realised almost as soon as I had hit the button, but I'd switched off the confirmation by this point. I rapidly switched it back on. Since then, I've noticed quite a few occasions on which I've hit ctrl-return and then realised I should tweak my message in some way before I send it.
In conclusion: 5 seconds may not seem like a lot, but it could make all the difference.
There are other reasons why you'd want to recall a message sent to your boss.
Say, you forgot to attach the required document. Or you realized you made a typo in dollar amount. Or you forgot to copy someone important on the message (and because of CYA or whatever, your boss needs to see that you cc:ed the person).
At least once a month I send an email I wish I could recall, because I would have liked to have made a small change... and instead I end up sending a followup email, which is just unwieldy and annoying.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
On AOL, you could un-send mail after any amount of time as long as:
the recipient was also an eol user.
they hadn't yet opened the email.
Saved my butt more than a few times.
A popup. How lame, lazy, and dangerous: (I realize it's an optional setting)
- First, it's NOT undo... this is a delay tactic. A real undo would have the system hold the mail in your "outbox" for a user customizable time, from where you can snatch it, but only when you need to.
- Second, you now have to wait, EVERY time you send an email. Because "email regret" happens only now and then, it's likely to get turned off. Back to square one.
- Third, if there ever was a "Send now" button, you'll get so customized to pressing it, that you're again back to square one.
I appreciate the effort, but this gets an F. Please, head back to the labs, make something really sensible (i.e. not lame), and try again.
You mean Mail Goggles?
That's not a terrible idea. There have been a number of times that I've sent an email with the body of text saying "here's the report you asked for" and forgot to attach it. which made me feel like an idiot.
Gnome's Evolution optionally warns you if your email contains words like "attachment" (it also seems to apply other heuristics), but no attached file exists. Works surprisingly well.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
There's a Gmail labs plugin that alerts you if you write the word 'attach' in the email and then don't attach anything. Useful.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
The setting in question can be changed to 0, 5 or 10 seconds, but defaults to 5 if you turn the feature on. See your Labs area in GMail for more details
I personally added a "Delay Sending by One Minute" rule into Outlook at work. It saves me a lot of embarassment when I hit send without adding my attachments (happens a lot). I wouldn't mind a similar gmail holding pen.
Some mail clients (well, KMail) scans the message body for words like "attached". If it finds one, and there's no attachment, it pops up a warning like "Did you mean to add an attachment?". Excellent feature, it's just a shame it's so slow to use IMAP with GMail.
AFAIK, that's no longer possible.
It's been tried, but the + moderation will change the label from troll to whatever label is used for the + mod... and if (underrated) is used to mod the post up, the troll label disappears.
Last time I saw a high net positive mod (+4 or +5) with a troll label was at least 4-5 years ago.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Whenever I replies to/writes a sensitive or important email, I clear the To/Cc fields, completely, and only add the addresses just before I'm sending. ... This, of course, should be after I've proofread it several times, and preferable waited a day :-)
Works in all email clients!
I like my solution better - I don't drink alcohol at all.