Mail recall, aka the oops feature

May 27 2012

Of late on Twitter, I've mentioned a few times that I am in the process of re-reading all my old blog entries going all the way back to 2002. I expect I'll be able to say why, soon....

Anyway, I've now caught up to mid-2007, just before Lotus Notes 8 shipped. A number of blog entries I wrote at the time covered the then-new Notes feature of being able to recall a sent mail message, and whether it should be on by default.

Notes 8 has been in market almost five years, and I found these older blog entries an interesting prompt to reflect on this feature. At the time, competitively we were getting pummeled on it. Novell Groupwise customers simply wouldn't consider switching to another platform without it, and Outlook/Exchange 2007 had implemented a rudimentary form of the feature (enough to get the proverbial "check box"). Our engineering team was never content to check box a feature, so when they implemented mail recall, they made sure it would work across multiple Domino servers, multiple recipients, messages that had already been read, etc.

Five years in, I am not sure how often this feature has truly been used. I maybe have tried to use it half a dozen times myself, and it rarely seems to actually "work" in my own environment. I also think in the era of always-connected smartphones, the idea of pulling back something you send has limited utility today.

I first wrote about it conceptually in 2003, immortalizing a 1994 incident at my former employer where someone would have begged for recall when they inadvertently did a reply-to-all on an email that went to everyone in the company.

So, I am curious -- do your organizations use Notes 8's mail recall feature? Have any good stories about it?

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  messaging  Add/View Comments [35]

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  1. 1  Michael Kobrowski  | 5/27/2012 11:44:56 AM

    Yeah, our company uses it, but we only have it enabled for a limited number of people.

  1. 2  Norm  | 5/27/2012 11:55:52 AM

    Hi Ed - yes, we have it enabled and it's used within our organization (about 2k users). We don't allow recall of 'read' messages due to the confusion that might create for folks who 'swear they read it, and now it's gone'. It works well. If only SMTP supported this feature cross-platform, but that's certainly nothing to do with Domino.

  1. 3  Steve Pitcher http://www.stevencpitcher.com | 5/27/2012 12:30:45 PM

    Just to weigh in with some data, Ed. We don't have it enabled.

    I'm from the school of personal responsibility and accountability. If HR sends a confidential document to our shippers on a loading dock, then that's on HR.

    Maybe that shipper, or anyone else for that matter, has a mail rule forwarding all mail to a personal email address. A false sense of security from HR if they think they have actually successfully recalled it.

    Not really a fit for us.

  1. 4  Serdar Basegmez http://lotusnotus.com/en | 5/27/2012 1:41:12 PM

    General trend on my customers; they scared to enable them (because it might be abused) but then one day, when they really need it, they are frustrated :)

    I have also seen that users don't want to recall internal messages (because it means that their incoming messages could be recalled) but want to be able to recall outgoing e-mails and some sweared Outlook has this feature :)

    As a serious answer, it's a great feature and I'm enabling it for most of my customers. I don't think it's about personal responsibility or other stuff. People do mistakes and some 'oops' moments would be expensive.

  1. 5  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 5/27/2012 3:45:36 PM

    While you're at it remove return receipts too.

  1. 6  Chris Haylock  | 5/27/2012 6:48:15 PM

    I would use it if the CIO's office turned it on!

  1. 7  Mark Roden http://www.xomino.com | 5/27/2012 6:56:56 PM

    We have it installed and it saved my BUTT when I sent a rude email to the wrong person. I thought it was very slick, easy to use and well implemented

    Thanks IBM!

    ;)

  1. 8  Stephan H. Wissel http://www.wissel.net/ | 5/27/2012 7:42:44 PM

    The feedback I get from customers: mail recall doesn't work. When I ask back IN find out: in 20% of the cases it wasn't activated, but in 80% of the cases users wanted to recall a message sent through the internet (I also get the occasional Outlook recall request in my inbox).

    So without Internet email recall it is pretty useless, since users can't trust that it would work. And like (snail) mail: once a letter is in the public mailbox it should be out of reach for the sender. Call this a catch 22.

  1. 9  Frédéric Fanchamps  | 5/28/2012 3:59:23 AM

    I used it once after sending an incomplete email to my team.

    It causes lot of strange error messages when they opened their inbox, such as view corrupted and things like that.

    I don't use it anymore.

  1. 10  Alan  | 5/28/2012 4:13:02 AM

    Used regularly here. Controlled by policy so that only unread messages can be recalled, and users have the ability to set the preference to prevent mail sent to them being recalled. We've advertised the feature as an enhancement and its popular. Also clearly communicated its impossible to recall internet messages.

    As an admin I'd love the ability to go in to a user's mailfile (via Full Admin access) and recall any message sent. Would have helped clear up a couple of issues where defamatory messages were sent to the whole company. Would also enable us to break the Reply To All chains when someone has inadvertantly mailed the whole company.

  1. 11  Pálmi  | 5/28/2012 4:14:13 AM

    yes We do and please don´t remove it. It was one of the thinks that people would say" but i could do this in Outlook". But I Like to make an suggestion for improvement. Don´t remove the whole email just the content and leave a message in the BODY saying " The Owner has removed the content of this email , DATE & Time , Comment from user.

  1. 12  Sriram http://twitter.com/tsriram | 5/28/2012 5:06:50 AM

    Yes, we use it and its really helpful. One suggestion is that it would be great to have a report for the administrator(mainly for Audit purpose) of all recalled mails.

  1. 13  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/28/2012 7:45:14 AM

    There is no sinister "I'm thinking about whether we still need this feature" question behind the question. I am just genuinely curious about its use.

  1. 14  Jan  | 5/28/2012 1:26:43 PM

    Yes, we are using it. Coming from Novell Groupwise.

    We enabled it only for unread mail, and it is quite often used, according to the logs.

    I used it twice for mails with missing mail attachments.

  1. 15  Carsten  | 5/29/2012 4:24:30 AM

    Please look into SPR MSTS7SMFVE and PMR 52990 010 678.

    To really make it work, please add some feature, like "You have been sending this message to users outside your company, do you want to sent them an email that they should delete this message ?"

    The response they get now is so cryptic that it cripples the function and confuses users.

  1. 16  Jan Van Puyvelde  | 5/29/2012 7:04:48 AM

    Not enabled, because of security/compliance reasons. The last time I heard a user say "Outlook has it", is 1-2 years ago.

  1. 17  Keith Taylor  | 5/29/2012 7:26:20 AM

    1200 users here. There is a certain class of employee who really appreciates it. I can see the value in it for bulk email communications that may contain an error but little else.

  1. 18  Erich Schmidt  | 5/29/2012 8:22:50 AM

    Yeah, we have it implemented, and it has been used, though not a lot. Has always worked well for us, as far as I know (it has for me, personally, too). Of course, as has been mentioned some users don't understand the distinction between internal (Notes) and external (SMTP) email.

  1. 19  Martijn de jong http://www.socialsoftwareblog.nl | 5/29/2012 8:28:25 AM

    Not used here currently, but my main customer is considering it as they're finally rolling out Lotus Notes 8.5 to all desktops and laptops. I've seen one case where this feature caused a big oops. An IBM employee sent out a mail to all local Lotus customers and business partners. All addresses were in bcc or in a not expanded group (can't remember which one of the two). Then he tried to recall the message...

    The recall message was unsupported in most places, so we just received a weird mail with all email addresses of all local Lotus customers and Business partners in the to-field...

    I guess the guy received many angry calls that day :-)

  1. 20  Norbert  | 5/29/2012 8:34:34 AM

    in general we don't recommend our customer to use, because this function is not reliable. Not because of it is not working, but because of

    - sending messages to internet receipients

    - users going offline with local replicas

    - smart phone users

    If users get well skilled and know about the caveats it is a nice and usefull feature, just in case..

  1. 21  Mark Lepisto  | 5/29/2012 10:49:25 AM

    We enabled it by policy and don't let our users turn it off. I felt that would keep the functionality consistent. We advertised that it wouldn't work for SMTP mail and that it doesn't work outside the company, and haven't had many complaints. People can at least 'try' to recall a message. Sometimes a person will only want to use it once a year, but that once can be a big deal.

  1. 22  Mike McP  | 5/29/2012 10:53:14 AM

    We use it here, and no problems to report. Agree that with the dawn of smartphones, you need to be very quick to get a recall to work procedurally. Technically, it seems very solid.

    I've used it, and I know of one high-profile email that went out with the wrong attachment that was successfully recalled.

  1. 23  Brett Hershberger  | 5/29/2012 11:08:39 AM

    We successfully implemented it at the City. Trained them on it with the R8 roll-out, and explained that is doesn't work for internet email. It works flawlessly, they love it, they use it, they understand it. Highly recommended.

  1. 24  Teo  | 5/30/2012 8:48:14 AM

    Heavily used here but only on unread mail. It's a "must have" feature ... so many mails are sent on impulse.

  1. 25  Paul http://www.salvationarmy.org | 5/30/2012 9:07:06 AM

    It has become useless with mobility. To avoid the "I swear I read it", we do not allow the recall of read messages. Problem is that with mobile devices all mail is read almost immediately.

  1. 26  Keith Brooks http://blog.vanessabrooks.com | 5/30/2012 11:29:10 AM

    I always ask clients if they want it turned on, then for which people, after I explain it does not work for mail outside your company sent via SMTP.

    The last point is a sticking point for some to say no, but others want internal people to be able to do it.

    Setting up scheduled emails to go out at a later time is more useful IMHO.

  1. 27  Irv Schor  | 5/31/2012 7:53:17 AM

    Enabled, Used, and have made IT look like a hero on server an occasion. Always tough, however, explaining to folks that they cannot recall the messages once it goes out to internet land. However I do agree @25 that the feature becomes more futile in theory as mobility continues to entrench itself everwhere.

  1. 28  Manuel Nientit  | 6/1/2012 5:50:40 AM

    Used in our office and all of my customers use it. (Do not recall read mail)

    I very often see hold messages in the mailbox like "message recall cannot be processed over SMTP" - or something like that.

    It is indeed one of those features (like "recent contacts"), you have to explain to users over and over, but they do not understand the difference between internal mail and internet mail.

    I like and use it occasionally, but I hate it, because users do not understand...

  1. 29  Ben Pasmore http://ibmcloud.com/social/support | 6/1/2012 12:14:55 PM

    I use a local replica and have deleted many sent items before replicating. I find the ability to delete after I hit send useful for the following cases:

    1) correcting my C&S goofs without having to cancel or reschedule

    2) un-send on something sent in the heat of the moment and then instantly regretted

    3) correcting those cases where you hit send and immediately realize "opps, I forgot...."

    If you could invent something that read all my emails before actually sending and was intelligent enough to ask me if I'm sure I want to send such a message... it would be more awesome than Siri!

  1. 30  John Paganetti  | 6/1/2012 5:28:47 PM

    Personally use at least a few times a year. Real easy to use and really like the report sent back about whom it was successfully recalled from as well as if they had read or not read the message before it was recalled.

  1. 31  Harald Svab  | 6/18/2012 8:45:27 AM

    Currently we don't have it enabled for our 15k users. We are not going to enable it although we have had several incedents were users asked us to recall the sensitiv mail sent to the wrong recepient. I would enable it if there is some user guidence implemented like @11 and @15 suggested.

    Be aware that even unread mail could have been seen by the recepient in his inbox!

  1. 32  Andy Moore http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/documentation/daosoptimizing/ | 6/20/2012 5:07:34 AM

    We regularly get our customers, who are the IT guys in an organization, make complaints that it doesn't work the way they want it to. When you ask how they want it to work, the 2 main items that come up are having the email item recalled immediately even if the recipient is using a local mail DB replica, and that Recall doesn't work over SMTP. When I and my colleagues explain how Recall works technically behind the scenes and show that their requests are technically unfeasible limitations, the usual response is "well its not good enough, IBM should have thought of that beforehand".

    So its not just end users that do not understand distinctions, restrictions and limitations!

    I do agree that the "Router: Message Recall Requests cannot be routed via SMTP" error needs to be changed. No end user has the first clue what SMTP is. Something like "Router: The route to the recipient includes transfer via a non Notes/Domino system that does not support Recall. Message could not be Recalled." would be better.

  1. 33  Patrick  | 7/2/2012 10:23:29 AM

    I have always thought that users might actully prefer their client to delaying sending emails 30 seconds or so to give them the chance of preventing that sinking feeling about 1 second after you click send on that half finished / wrongly addressed etc. email.

    I know that when I have done this most of the time I pretty much imediately knew that I wish I hadn't clicked send.