Email Sent To Wrong Person? Blame Wonky Gmail Auto-Complete Function

Apr 22
09:36

2015

Yamin Raj

Yamin Raj

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

What happens when a boon turns out to be a headache? Something that no one wants to face. Same has been seen with Gmail Auto Complete function, where it was created for making user experience simple and convenient; today somehow it is playing the either role.

mediaimage

Lately there have been noticed a hype among the people in Twitter and web forums which mainly exposed the problem of mails being addressed to a wrong recipient. How embarrassing moment it will be if you send your boss a goodbye naughty joke,Email Sent To Wrong Person? Blame Wonky Gmail Auto-Complete Function Articles which was meant for your friend, or an important client details to someone who was not supposed to have it, and sometime maybe the recipient is correct but the message send was not something that you wanted to send. However, it has found that the most common reason behind such behavior is due to the wonky Gmail auto-complete function.

Google has never failed to understand its customer requirements and with every update they have proved how good they can be, when it comes to enhancing user experience. A good example can be seen with Gmail, features like an inline compose box, offline access and many others by far have out marked every others in the industry. But some recent incidents have shown how a function can go against its expectation which in turn can leave a user in real trouble. Gmail has a utility function that lets user to write the initials of the contacts and it will automatically suggest you with the complete contact Id. These features work on a principle where it auto-completes the email address based on the frequent email id first, then so on, thus there is a high possibility for users who are in rush to enter the wrong id.

Although it's not such a big issue in the lights of issues like account hacked, but the outrage of people in different social sites has led Google to think for a while. However, with just a little bit of precaution one can easily avoid such scenario. But the big question here is in this world where everyone always seems to be in a really hurry, how an individual can get rid of certain possibilities? The good thing here is yes, there is a way by which you can stop the mail to be delivered. Gmail lets you do this without installing any external extension or program, all you have to do is some minor changes in settings. But you will get only 10 seconds by default (can be extended to 30 seconds) after pressing the send button to decide whether or not you want to cancel the email.

How to enable "Undo send" in Gmail:

  • Click on the cog icon placed on the top right of Gmail.
  • Go to settings.
  • In the Lab tab, scroll down and enable"undo send".
  • After enabling delay the mail delivered, you can manually select the duration as per your preference.
  • Go to the General tab in settings and select any duration you prefer from 5 to 30 seconds.
  • Then at last click on "Save Changes"

From now onwards, Gmail will give you the option to undo the message to be sent. A pop up will come for a few seconds within which you can undo your selection; the email will be stopped immediately. But if you miss that time interval, then you have no way to pull the message back. As per for your business prospective it is a highly recommended feature. Enabling undo send doesn't really bother you in any way; instead it can save you from big troubles.

Article "tagged" as:

Categories: