Slowly but surely, the Gmail app on mobile devices is catching up with its browser-based big brother. On Monday, Android Police was among the first to notice that the “undo send” feature has been added to Gmail for Android as of version 8.7 of the app. Going forward, if you suddenly realize you accidentally CC’d instead of BCC’d, or included an embarrassing typo in an important email, you’ll have a few extra seconds to stop it from sending.
Google typically highlights major additions like these in a blog post or a tweet, but other than a new section on the support site, Google has refrained from saying anything. It’s also unclear when exactly the feature arrived, as there seems to be some evidence that it was a server-side update rather than directly through Google Play.
In testing the new feature on multiple devices, Android Police found that undo send was occasionally unavailable until a few minutes had passed or they force quit the app. Try sending a test email to one of your secondary accounts or a trusted friend before you start trusting the app to save your from embarrassment.
You’ll know that the feature has been implemented in your app when you see a notification appear at the bottom of the screen. It will be a long black bar with the word “Sending…” on the left and “CANCEL” on the right. You’ll have a few seconds to cancel the outgoing email before it sends, which will return you to the original email draft. If you miss the opportunity to cancel the sending, you’ll see the bar update to read “Sent” and “UNDO” instead. If you waited too long to cancel, you’ll have one last chance to take the email back by pressing UNDO.
Be sure your Android Gmail app is updated to the latest version before you test out the new feature, but if you see the new style of notifications, you’re good to go. Now let’s hope this hits the iOS app sooner than later.
