14 DAY TRIAL // 'Undo' is not a feature you'd think you would ever need when sending an email. At least, not until you spot something horribly wrong seconds after you hit Send. Thankfully Gmail has had an 'undo' button of sorts for a while now in Labs.
And now, you can choose the time delay before hitting Send and the email going on its way. Firing off an email is as easy as it gets in Gmail. So easy in fact that it's very possible to hit the Send button before the email is really ready.
Maybe you've spotted a spelling mistake in a job application. Or you've realized you're sending the email to the wrong Bob, even you have the "Got the wrong Bob?" Labs add-on enabled, or any number of things that could go wrong.
With the "Undo Send" Gmail Labs add-on, you get an Undo link in the notification message after you sent an email message. You could also hit the 'z' key for the same effect. Initially, the message was displayed for five seconds, enough for instant realizations, but probably too short for some cases.
Google kept extending the 'undo' period, users were able to set it to 10 seconds, then 20 seconds and now, even to 30 seconds. That's probably more than enough time for most people.
The feature could do with a little more polish, a few more options and maybe some deeper changes. For example, Gmail could stay in the edit window after you've hit Send during the undo period making possible to spot mistakes rather than just remember or realize something.
Still, the Undo feature highlights just how important the Labs section is. It, along with Google's '20 percent' rule, enable Googlers to implement the features they want to see in Gmail rather than the ones the Gmail team focuses on. And if the idea catches on, it could very well be implemented as a regular feature. [via Google OS]