John Gully's Blog  { technology tips, tricks and errata; }

How many times have you clicked Send on an email only to regret it moments later?  There is no undo in email, but if you are using Microsoft Outlook here's the next best thing.

Fire up Outlook, and from the Tools menu select Rules and Alerts.  From the "Rules and Alerts" window click the New Rule button.

Select the last template in the list, Check messages after sending and click the Next button.

This rule does not require anything conditions from the "Which condition(s) do you want to check" step so just click the Next button again.  You will be warned that "The rule will apply to every message you send" click Yes when prompted.

On the "What do you want to do with the message" step select the last option in the list "defer delivery by a number of minutes".  Click on "a number of" and specify how long to wait before sending messages, and click the Next button. 

 

At the "Are there any exceptions" step check the "except if it is marked as importance" option.  Click on "importance" and select "High" from the drop-down list and click the Next button.

Finally at the "Finish rule setup" step name the rule "Delay outgoing messages for 5 minutes" or something that provides you similar understanding of the rule.  Click the Finish button to complete the rule.

That's it!  Now any new email you create will remain in the Outlook outbox for 5 minutes before being sent.  This should give you enough time to edit a message if you decide you have made a mistake. 

Don't worry about setting the delay to less than 5 minutes, or turning off the rule for time-sensitive email.  If you have something urgent simply mark it as a message of high importance and it will be sent immediately, bypassing any delay.