Second chances don’t come around too often in real life. Luckily, you get loads of them in the world of technology. Whether you posted some unintentionally misspelled Instagram caption (thanks for nothing, autocorrect!) or wrote an incriminating email that you want to unsend, we’re sure you’ve had your share of these annoying situations. We’ve all been there.
Don’t worry, though, because we can teach you how to undo the most common tech mistakes. Take notes if you must—we’re sure they’ll come in handy soon.
Unsend Emails in Microsoft Outlook
Although it isn’t foolproof, you may “recall” messages you’ve sent via Outlook. You either replace it with an error-free email or delete the message before anybody else opens it.
To enable the recall function, go to the Navigation pane > Sent Items. Open the message you wish to replace or recall. Afterward, click Recall This Message on the Actions menu and then select Delete Unread Copies of This Message. Cross your fingers that not a lot of people have opened your email.
Unsend Emails in Gmail
Have you accidentally pressed the send button midway through drafting your email? Gmail users like yourself should be relieved that you’ve got the Undo Send feature at your disposal. Enable this option and you can do damage control whenever necessary.
To enable Undo Send, go to your Gmail’s Settings > General > Undo Send > and hit “Enable”. Keep in mind that you may set the amount of time (as long as 30 seconds!) you can delay each email you send on Gmail.
Undo Sending SMS on an Android Phone
The bad news? There may be no technical way to do this without external help. Try downloading TigerText (available for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Phones, too) to recall any messages. The clever app also lets you set a time limit for how long the recipient can view the message. It works just like Snapchat.
Undo Sending Texts on an iPhone
Frankly, you can’t retract a text that has already been sent. You can, however, stop one that’s still being sent out (hint: the little gray bar is still loading). Just put your phone on Airplane Mode ASAP and then delete the message once it fails to deliver. Remember that this trick only works for texts sent via iMessage and for those that are sending particularly slowly.
In case you’re unsure how to set your phone into airplane mode, go to Settings > Airplane Mode. From there, simply switch the mode on.
Redo Errors while Typing on an iPhone
Don’t let typos stall you longer than they should. If you’ve accidentally typed something wrong while composing a text or email, simply shake your phone to undo it. When you need to redo it, just give your iPhone another shake. It’s that simple.
Undo/Redo Typing on Your Computer
Sure, there are the undo/redo buttons on word processors. If finding those buttons every time you mistype something seems too disruptive, master this easy shortcut: Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y. Their Mac equivalents are Command + Z and Command + shift + Z, respectively.
Curious what keyboard wizardry you can do on both Windows and Mac? Check out our ultimate keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac.
Reopen a Closed Tab in a Web Browser
You need not retrace your steps every time you accidentally close a tab while surfing the internet. Instead of pulling up your browsing history each time, hit these keys: Ctrl + shift + T (or Command + shift + T on a Mac). Watch all your recently closed tabs magically reappear with each repetition!
In case you’re wondering—yes, these shortcuts work on all major Web browsers.
Edit Facebook Posts
Whether you’ve accidentally tagged the wrong people or unknowingly made some embarrassing typos in your latest post, you no longer need to live with those mistakes on Facebook. Thank your lucky stars that Facebook now lets you edit your own posts!
Just look for the down arrow in the top right corner of your post and select Edit Post. Do the necessary changes and click on the Done Editing button after.
Edit Instagram Posts
Amazing shots don’t often sit well with awkward typos or wrong details. When you need to iron out a few wrinkles in some of your recent posts, go back to them and tap on the three circles in the right corner. Tap Edit and now you can change the caption, location, or tag/untag some folks.
So much better than having to delete the whole post and redoing them from scratch, isn’t it?
Recover a Lost Word Document
No doubt, losing a document is something that happens even to the best of us. If it’s an inevitable possibility, it may be wise to know how to salvage any previously unsaved word processor file.
On a Windows PC, check your Temp folder. By default, this is the folder where Microsoft Word buries anything it deems as “lost”. Use Windows Explorer when finding this well-hidden folder. In case nothing resembles the file you’re trying to recover, go to Word’s File menu (or the Office Button in 2007 Microsoft Office), click Open, and then go to Recent Documents. Scroll down to the very end of all recent documents and then click on Recover Unsaved Documents. You should find the document you’re looking for and when you do, open then save it right away.
For Macs, take a peek in your trash for a recovered Items folder. This should make your search shorter.
Technological mistakes are inevitable and this crash course on basic tech damage control may one day come in handy. When that time comes—you’re welcome.
