Retrieving a sent message

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john

Much dispute about this with IT people. If you recall a
message sent to an external address served by another
server, do you get a responsive message as requested by
the default to explain whether your recall worked. Do you
get any indication of whether the recipient got the
message and opened it (i.e. a failed recall?)
 
All I can say, as an IT person, is that message recall works so rarely that
I advise not bothering with it at all. It requires a very very very specific
set of circumstances to work at all. And usually doesn't.
 
"john" said in news:[email protected]:
Much dispute about this with IT people. If you recall a
message sent to an external address served by another
server, do you get a responsive message as requested by
the default to explain whether your recall worked. Do you
get any indication of whether the recipient got the
message and opened it (i.e. a failed recall?)

If you execute a recall within your own Exchange organization, there is a
chance that the recall will work. From what I hear, it is not reliable.
However, if you are trying to recall a message that was sent externally, you
cannot recall it. Once the user downloads the message from the POP3 server,
there is obviously no way for that ISP to force its users to remove messages
that were downloaded.

Outlook is supposed to provide a recall function that works outside of
Exchange. Basically it sends a special message that contains commands to
Outlook to ignore and delete a particular message. It works rarely. The
problem is that most users sort their incoming e-mails in the order they
were received and usually read their messages from oldest to newest. So the
user is going to read your original message before they open the special
message that has Outlook perform the delete. Even if the special message is
opened before reading the original message, it seems to be a very flaky
success. I've seen it work but not very often.

Basically once an e-mail is sent outside your organization, you don't have
any control over it anymore. Trying to recall a sent message is like trying
to ask everyone in a crowd to forget that you just screamed out loud, "I
have a wart on my tit." You got their attention, they heard you, and asking
them to forget it won't work. It's out. And it's out of your control.

About the only viable method that I have heard of for recalling messages is
to use special delivery services for e-mail. For example, some will provide
expiring e-mail. The recipient can read the e-mail but eventually it will
go away. A client or plug-in decrypts the e-mail that got received so it is
readable but it also checks with the server or info within the encrypted
message for an expiration and will make the message unreadable (i.e., it
won't decrypt it anymore) after the expiration. I'm sure these same type of
e-mail services can also allow a recall of a message either by you having it
removed from their mail server before it gets delivered. You could also
pre-expire the message. If the recipient has already downloaded the
message, they won't be able to read it because it has already expired. If
they have read it, they won't be able to read it anymore after you force it
to expire. Note that this still does not protect your e-mail from getting
retransmitted and no longer under your control. After all, the message had
to appear on their screen and the recipient could obviously just use a
screen capture or copy/paste to put your content in another e-mail they send
to someone else or keep in a file separate of the e-mail client using the
expiring decrypting plug-in.

You are responsible for what you say. If you have a temperament that causes
you to compose inaccurate or inflamatory e-mails that you wish later you had
not sent then simply never send your e-mails immediately. Compose them and
send them an hour later or more to let you cool off or to review your
message with a refreshed eye. Remember that anything you send from work
reflects on that business and you can be liable for the content of your
messages and can even get your fired. Even expressing your opinions can get
you into hot water. For personal e-mails you compose while at work, using a
webmail provider, like Yahoo or Hotmail, to send those e-mails. Don't be
sending messages that reflect negatively on the company from the company's
own domain. Do that from your own personal service.
 
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