angie wrote:
> i have just sent a message to the wrong recipient. how can i cancel the
> message?
> is that possible and if yes how? i use outlook 2000
Recall rarely works across different e-mail servers. It only sometimes
works when both sender and recipient are using the same Exchange server
(or Exchange servers within the same organization); however, if you are
sending e-mails via SMTP, the chance of Recall working is dismal. That
means rather than issuing a recall *function* to the Exchange server to
yank out the original e-mail from the recipient's mailbox, you are
sending a *new* e-mail that requests the recipient's mail client to
remove an item AFTER the mail client has downloaded the original message
from their mailbox. That means the e-mail client must understand the
encoded Message-ID header in your 2nd new e-mail that makes the recall
request. It also requires that the recipient open the recall e-mail
BEFORE they open your original e-mail - and that means the recipient
would need to have e-mails listed in descending sort order rather than
ascending sort order. If the recipient opens your original e-mail
(which they WILL already have downloaded) before opening your recall
e-mail then they can obviously read the original message because they
have not first opened your recall e-mail which then attempts (in Outlook
only) to delete the original e-mail.
Even if the recipient reads their e-mails in descending sort order, it
is unlikely that their e-mail client knows how to handle a recall. The
Microsoft-specific non-standard modification of the Message-ID header
(by adding the "!-!" prefix and encoding information within the userID
portion before the "@" character) is used to indicate a recall but it is
only recognized by Outlook (and the recipients have to read e-mails in
descending order so they open your recall e-mail first) so don't expect
the recall to work. A recipient using anything other than Outlook
2000+, like Outlook Express, will see both the original message and
recall messages and first opening the recall e-mail will NOT delete the
original e-mail. Non-Outlook e-mail clients don't know how to handle
the recall request that is encoded within the Message-ID header.
If using Exchange to send your e-mails which were sent to a recipient
also using the same Exchange organization then recall might work because
the mail server is handling the request to delete messages from the
recipient's mailbox. Recall won't work unless both sender and recipient
use Outlook 2000+ and the recipient happens to open the recall e-mail
first.
At this point, and if you are the sender, you should send another new
e-mail to correct your mistake in your original e-mail or to apologize
for the content of your first e-mail. Getting a recall e-mail will only
draw more attention by the recipient to your original e-mail.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197094/en-us
If you read the help already included in Outlook to search on "recall",
it would have plainly stated "This feature requires Microsoft Exchange".
For SMTP, there is a miniscule possibility that if the recipient also
uses Outlook then the recall via the encoded Message-ID directive will
work since Outlook handles that non-Exchange method. It rarely works.
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