The message was successfully recalled but was read by the recipient.

Question

Hi,

I tried to recall the message and I received a report like this "The message was successfully recalled but was read by the recipient." Will this mean that my message was deleted in the recipient's inbox? We are in the same organization.

Answer 1

Hello Chris Ti,

Thank you for choosing the Microsoft Community!

Did some tests on my end as well. To answer your question, YES. The message was successfully deleted from the recipient's inbox. But this was after the recipient read the message. You are most likely using cloud-based Message Recall in Exchange Online.

In case you have any further questions, please let me know.

Thank you for your precious time and have a great day.

Sincerely,

Ashraf

Answer 2

Just tested this myself. The message itself does not recall if it has been read. Outlook simply sends the recipient a follow-up email saying that the sender wishes to recall the email. Extremely disappointing from Microsoft.

Answer 3

Just tested this myself. The message itself does not recall if it has been read. Outlook simply sends the recipient a follow-up email saying that the sender wishes to recall the email. Extremely disappointing from Microsoft.

So, in other words, Outlook considers an email successfully recalled, even if the recipient saw the email and then also sees the additional email saying there was an attempt to recall? If so, what is the whole point of this feature then?

Answer 4

Just tested this myself. The message itself does not recall if it has been read. Outlook simply sends the recipient a follow-up email saying that the sender wishes to recall the email. Extremely disappointing from Microsoft.

So, in other words, Outlook considers an email successfully recalled, even if the recipient saw the email and then also sees the additional email saying there was an attempt to recall? If so, what is the whole point of this feature then?

Interesting. I have seen the additional recall email sent when the original email was sent to another domain/tenant, different than the sender's domain.

However, with your reply, I realized I could test this myself as well and did so. Thank you!

When recalling my test email send to another mailbox within the same domain/tenant, the 'read' message simply disappeared from the inbox upon recall. No message was sent saying there was a recall attempt.

In addition, the mailbox I sent the email to is a shared mailbox and all emails are forwarded to another individual. That forwarded email was also recalled. This was surprising and an unexpected benefit.

Answer 5

Right. MS evidently hasn't thought this one through. The obvious solution: If the recipient has opened the email, the recall process should halt, with the sender (and only the sender) getting a message that it is too late; the recipient already opened the email. Or, you should have the option of selecting this form of recall.