Email message recall does it actually work?

Question

I was asked to recall a message I sent out to remove some personal info from it and replace it with a generic made up person as an example.

Does message recall really work?

It's my opinion because you get told a message has been recalled it just causes you to want to find out what was in the original message. All you do is find someone who had already read it.

Can exchange server be adjusted to not tell users when a message is recalled or replaced?

What about bcc, recall doesn't seem to work on these and global emails tend to be the ones you really need to recall.

Answer 1

Only works on unopened mail, local to the server you sent it on. (as far as I know, I suppose it could work on server farms/clusters too?)

Answer 2

In most cases, it's too late, it just let's me know there was an email you didn't want me to read.

Answer 3

Only works on unopened mail, for users of MS Exchange/Outlook.

read this blog post and comments for more information.

Answer 4

To add a bit of information, if the message is displayed in a preview pane, it is considered read making recalling impossible.

We did some testing just yeasterday and discovered that the recall feature is pretty lame. As mentioned above it is only recalled if it is unread (or unpreviewed). In the case where it has been read, the recall only makes the message MORE obvious. Not the desired effect by far.

Answer 5

If the recipient is offline and message is not delivered to his PST by the Exchange server, then RECALL works and you get the message accordingly.

Thanks & Regards, Ajay

Answer 6

Do you have to subsribe for the recall service?