Many of us have experienced that sinking feeling after accidentally sending an email to an unintended recipient. Worse, you might have sent a very private conversation to the entire team by accidentally hitting the “Reply all” button.
UnSend.it comes a few years too late for Hillary Clinton
Google tried to address that issue by launching the “Undo Send” feature for Gmail. But it is only available temporarily (up to 30 seconds after you hit the send button). Another drawback is that it works only for emails sent on Google’s servers. Outlook also has a similar feature, but works only in certain circumstances.
Now UnSend.it lets you unsend or edit emails and attachments minutes, hours or days after you sent them. It can delete all traces of the unwanted emails. The service arrived a few years too late for Hillary Clinton. UnSend.it also notifies you when the recipient opens your email. How does it work? As UnSend.it points out, “Our SMTP server is where the magic happens!”
An easy to use service
Using the service is pretty quick and easy. It took me less than five minutes to set up my account and start sending emails from my Gmail account via UnSend.it servers. The website has a step-by-step guide to setup your account and get started. You can use UnSend.it from their own dashboard via their website or through your own email client (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.)
When you send an email via UnSend.it, it is converted into an image and embedded in the email body. It means what you are actually doing is creating a JPEG image file of whatever text you have typed. It allows you to “unsend” or edit an email by generating a new image. UnSend.it takes it to a new level by injecting a tracking code into images to let you see when the recipient opens your email.
Something to think about
However, a major issue is that many email servers block images in emails by default. UnSend.it has tried to address this issue. When I sent an email using UnSend.it to my Outlook account that blocks images, it shows a notification, “If you don’t see the message click “Display images” or Click here [link removed] to view the text version.” If you use a free account, all the emails you send contain an unremovable signature “Sent via unSend.it: Regret-Free Emailing.” That signature disappears when you upgrade to the Premium account.
Does UnSend.it remove the entire email from the recipient’s inbox when you “unsend” it? No. The recipient could still see the email in their inbox along with the subject line. However, all content from the body of the email, including attachments, are deleted.
UnSend.it claims to use “end-to-end encryption” and promises to provide the most secure server technology. Another cool feature of UnSend.it is the self-destruct option. It allows emails to disappear after the recipient reads the email. Overall, UnSend.it has a lot of features that a lot of people would find useful.
