How to Send a Correction Email After a Mistake

First, try to take it back

If you just clicked send, you may still have a few seconds.

Gmail: an "Undo" button appears at the bottom left after you send. By default it stays for 5 seconds. Make it 30: open Settings, then See all settings, then set Undo Send to 30 seconds and save. It is the most useful setting in Gmail.

Outlook on the web and the new Outlook: go to Settings, then Mail, then Compose and reply, and turn on Undo send for up to 10 seconds.

Recall in classic Outlook only works when the other person is in the same company and has not opened the email yet. Do not count on it. It can also send them a second message saying you tried to recall the first, which draws more attention to it.

If the email is gone, send a correction.

Does it need a correction at all?

Not every mistake does. A typo in an internal email can be left alone. Nobody wants a "Correction: I meant 'their'" email.

Send a correction when the mistake changes what the reader will do:

• A wrong date, time, place or link
• A wrong price or number
• A missing or wrong attachment
• The email went to the wrong person
• Their name is spelled wrong (this one is worth fixing)

How to write it

Reply to your own email, in the same thread, to the same people. Everyone sees the correction next to the mistake.

Start the subject or first line with "Correction". People who skim will still notice.

Give the right information first. The reader cares about the correct date, not about how sorry you are.

Apologise once, briefly, or not at all. "Sorry about that" is enough. Three sentences of apology make a small mistake look big.

Templates

Wrong attachment

Forgot the attachment

Short and a little self-aware is fine. Everyone has done it.

Wrong date or time

Wrong price

Correct a price quickly. The longer a wrong number sits in someone's inbox, the more it feels like an offer.

Broken link

Sent to the wrong person

Then send the email to the right person, and check whether anything in it was confidential. If it was, tell whoever needs to know at your company. It is much better coming from you.

Wrong name

The best correction is the one you never send

Most of these mistakes are the same few, over and over: "attached" with nothing attached, an email going to someone outside the company by accident, a number or name copied from an older email.

Presend checks every email and message when you click send and stops the common ones before they go out: a missing attachment, an outside address on an internal thread, a password or card number pasted by mistake. You can add your own rules in plain English for the mistakes your team keeps making, like "Warn me if the name in the greeting doesn't match the person I'm writing to."