How to recall an email.

Question

How to recall an email.

Glenn Maxwell 14,206

One of my users accidentally sent an email from a shared mailbox. Is it possible to recall the email that was sent from the shared mailbox?

If recall is supported, could you please share the prerequisites and steps to recall the message?

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Glenn Maxwell

Based on Microsoft documentation, a message sent from a shared mailbox can be recalled in Exchange Online.

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In my testing:

1.When the message was stored in the shared mailbox's Sent Items folder, the Recall option was grayed out in Classic Outlook, whereas it was unavailable in New Outlook.

-Classic Outlook

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-New Outlook:

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2.When the message was stored in the authenticated user's Sent Items folder, the Recall option was available in both Classic Outlook and New Outlook.

-Classic Outlook:
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-New Outlook

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You can also review the AI-generated answer, as it covers the prerequisites, limitations, and steps for recalling a message, including considerations specific to shared mailboxes.

I hope this helps clarify the recall behavior for messages sent from a shared mailbox.

Note: Please follow the steps in the forum documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

Yes. Email sent from a shared mailbox can be recalled, with important limitations.

Recall is supported for messages sent from shared or delegated mailboxes. However:

Recall works only when both the sender and recipient have Microsoft 365 work or school accounts in the same organization.
The recipient must not have opened the message yet.
Personal accounts such as Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live, MSN, or Gmail do not support recall.
If the message was sent from a shared mailbox, the recall report has limitations:
- The recall itself can succeed.
- The report is visible only in a browser.
- The report requires authentication by the owning mailbox; signing in as a user with delegated rights does not work.

For shared mailbox scenarios:

In Outlook for Windows, messages sent via a shared or delegated mailbox are stored in the Sent Items folder of the authenticated user who sent the message. Starting recall from that sent message can be successful.
In Outlook on the web, if the shared mailbox was opened using Open another mailbox and the sent item is in the shared mailbox’s Sent Items, the Recall option can be grayed out. The documented workaround is to open the shared mailbox in its own Outlook profile.

Steps to recall the message:

New Outlook for Windows or Outlook on the web

Open Sent Items.
Double-click the sent message so it opens in a separate window.
Select Recall Message on the ribbon.
Select OK.
Watch for the Message Recall Report email to check whether the recall succeeded, is pending, or failed.

Classic Outlook for Windows

Open Sent Items.
Open the message in a separate window.
Select File > Info.
Select Resend or Recall.
Select Recall This Message...
Optionally select Tell me if recall succeeds or fails for each recipient.
Select OK.

If needed, classic Outlook also supports Delete unread copies and replace with a new message.

Recall status timing:

A recall notification is usually sent in less than 30 seconds.
Status updates can take up to 5 minutes for messages with up to a few hundred recipients.
If a recipient mailbox is temporarily unavailable, Exchange can keep retrying for up to 24 hours before marking the recall as failed.