What should you do if you accidentally hit send on the wrong message?

CBS News

01-04-2025

With just a click of the mouse or tap on your phone, many have felt a rush of embarrassment.
Maybe you accidentally hit "reply all" on that email or sent it to the entirely wrong person.
To avoid future awkward moments: What should you do if you accidentally hit send? Good Question.
Your fingers are flying across the keyboard on an email. You even proofread it to be sure before confidently clicking send. Only then do you suddenly see typos, an incorrect date, or that it went to the wrong person.
Amira DeSabatino described the feeling as, "A bit of panic." Her friend Ashley Tagoorpersaud said, "Your heart just sinks into your stomach."
If that mistaken email was sent to a superior at work or a potential job offer.
"It's just like that you want to crawl under your desk and die," said Will Kuhnz.
From email to text message, the "accidental send" is a common mistake, but that doesn't diminish the swift embarrassment it creates.
"It seems like everyone has a fair amount of grace for email," said Kuhnz.
If you find yourself in this position,
employment experts at The Muse
said the first step is to accept the accidental send happened. Ignoring it, or hoping nobody noticed, could make it worse.
Next, acknowledge your mistake to the recipients.
"Sometimes, I have given my boss a heads up before, that 'hey this went out, it had an error in it'," said Kuhnz.
Follow-up emails with apologies and clarifications go a long way, especially when sent out quickly.
Lastly, Kuhnz says move on rather than emotionally attaching to it. Especially early in your career, it's a lesson you have to learn.
In recent years, technology has caught up to our inevitable errors.
Right after clicking send on Gmail, an unsend prompt appears giving users five seconds to snatch the email back. You can increase that grace period to 30 seconds in the settings.
Outlook has a recall feature, but it only works if the recipient is also using Outlook and hasn't opened the email.
If you text with an iPhone, you can unsend the message by pressing it, then selecting "undo send." The recipient will be notified that a message was unsent, however they won't see the initial message. It too has a time limit.
"I love the convenience of it. I wish it had come sooner," said Tagoorpersaud.
Given the constraints of these digital do-overs, take a couple extra seconds to give the message another look before sending it out.
"Super cautious, very intentional, a little bit nervous when I send an email," said DeSabatino of her new habits to avoid mistakes.
"I just make sure I proofread the message and double check the top of my (recipients)," said Jameela Martin.
Others suggested filling in the recipients as the last step of the email writing process.
Facebook Messenger and Instagram also have an unsend feature that deletes messages. Both have a time limit.