Oops! I didn't mean to send that.

[KMC]

Surely we've all done it at some point - click "send" on an email that wasn't ready, or was addressed to the wrong people, or maybe you accidentally hit "reply all".  Hopefully if this has happened to you it hasn't been anything embarrassing or harmful.

So what steps do you take to prevent this?

If you have done it, what kind of damage control can you do to mitigate the consequences?

[Mac Calder]

Well... gMail now has a service to help minimise this issue - if you notice within 5 seconds that you made a mistake - there is an "undo send" function (has to be enabled through Google Labs).

That said, I have done it before, never anything really bad... just embarasing, and has resulted in me sending an appology letter, as well as phoning up and groveling before they get a chance to read the email.

I have also accidently sent my resignation notice to the wrong printer - namely the one in my bosses office, and had to run in there and appologise as that is not the method I wanted him to find out about my resignation.

Basically, crawling on the knees tends to work.

[NomieRae]

gmail has a nifty thing, that if in the body of your e-mail the words "attachment" or "is attached" appears and then you forget to attach said file, it'll ask you if you wanted an attachment before it is sent. That has saved my butt several times.

As far as sending emails to the wrong people, just having contact lists built for a production is really helpful. But chances are there will be a few emails you only meant for a few pairs of eyes and hit the 'reply all.' most time it's no big deal, people will often ignore what isn't directly related to them. If your conscience is acting up I'd say send a  "My fault, this email was meant for "x y z""

--After reading Mac's post, I don't think there is any reason for every SM on the planet not to use gmail. It's amazing.

[SMrose]

I'm so worried about sending to the wrong person or parties that it's become habbit for me to really read the "Send" and "Copy to" blocks at the top of my emails before I hit send.  I also use spell check constantly--gives me a chance to re-read what I'm sending. And, as with my memos or notes, I've learned to word things carefully since they are words and not a face to face dialogue and may be misinterpreted.

[MatthewShiner]

I have the mother of all stories on this . . . a friend of mine set out an article from playbill.com about his new musical he wrote . . . and a new out of town try out.

I responded by "Who do i have to f**k to get this job?" - that was the kind of relationship me and this friend had.

I had hit reply to all . . . and it went out to about 100 people, some playwrights, some actors, a lot of producers (a lot of big, Broadway producers).

I cringed when I discovered my response went to everyone.

I hid for about 30 seconds, and then sent out a follow-up e-mail, basically apologizing for sending the response out to everyone, but then spun it into "That's how much I believe in this show . . . ".  I got about ten - 12 responses, all sent out "reply all", saying it was refreshing to see a stage manager being so excited about a show . . . and a couple requests for a resume.

In the end it worked out, but I think it was because of my sense of humor and owning up to the problem.

[avkid]

For a few years now AOL has made you spell check before you send a message.
Those 5 seconds have saved me a few times.

[jspeaker]

Matthew- WHAT A GREAT STORY!!

My biggest one was when I was in rehearsal for Pacific Overtures and performing The Clandestine Marriage.  My subject line was "Tuesday in Japan" for the PO Reports.  Yep... I sent the PO Report to both groups.  The Clandestine Marriage producer replied and said "Sounds great!  How was England on Tuesday??"

It happens and is embarrassing. 

[Britney]

I just had this happen. A tad different, but the same "Oops!" sentiment.
My theatre just got some new camp management software to help us manage our summer academy programs (we're a children's theatre). It's great software and it's really helped us out a lot so far. My producer wanted me to send out a tuition payment reminder e-mail to all the parents of the kids enrolled in our two older programs.  I was figuring it out and I thought I had it correct when I hit the E-MAIL button. I was sure it would give me a preview screen since it was essentially a mail merge, and then allow me to proof before I sent it to the 100+ people on our list.  It didn't.  Instead, it froze the machine and sent out an e-mail to every person that contained only their e-mail address.  Needless to say, for the next 2 hours I then received countless e-mails from worried parents asking if they "missed something" because the e-mail "didn't contain any information" and there was "nothing attached"
I eventually figured out the program, but felt foolish for mistakenly sending out such a strange e-mail to so many families.

Even small mistakes seem like HUGE mistakes when you're dealing with parents!

[KMC]

Okay, so we've got a few great examples of what can happen when you mistakenly send an email to the wrong people.

Let's steer back to topic and discuss what can be done to prevent that from happening, and if it has happened, what you've done to fix your mistake.

[Britney]

Apologies for the tangent. I suppose I can't resist telling a good "oops!" story!

For my part, I barely had time to react before the fall out started.  As soon as I started to receive the confused e-mails, I quickly drafted a blanket apology e-mail and each time I received a confused e-mail I copy/pasted the reply to each person (with a little personalization, of course).  Since I had gotten the correct e-mail out about 2 minutes after my goof and because the list was 100+ e-mail addresses, I decided to assume that if I didn't get a response to my goof e-mail that they had received the correct one and all was well.

This happened yesterday and so far, so good!

[cprted]

For those of you using email software such as Outlook or Entourage.  You can set your account settings to only send during the normal send/receive schedule as opposed to the moment you click send on your message.  This way you can skim through your outbox for errors before your messages get blasted off into internetland.

[ScooterSM]

Outlook also has a "recall message" feature, which has been a life saver more than once.  If someone has already opened the email there is nothing you can do, but otherwise it takes the message back.  This works really well for resending messages if you forgot the attachment.  HOWEVER, everyone who received the message gets a notice that they had a recalled email.

The other thing that I try to do is not put in the email addresses in until I am ready to send.  Again, doesn't work if you use reply to all, but is one step to help prevent sending new emails to the wrong people.

Just my opinion, but I feel like reply to all should almost never be used.  It creates a lot of mail that people don't necessarily need (taking up server space), and frequently sends info to people who are not involved in whatever the discussion is.  This invites one more cook to the kitchen with their opinion of how something should work or be resolved, which is not always a good thing.  Again, just my opinion, and certainly there are times when it is a benefit, not a detriment.

[BeckyGG]

The other thing that I try to do is not put in the email addresses in until I am ready to send.  Again, doesn't work if you use reply to all, but is one step to help prevent sending new emails to the wrong people.

Just my opinion, but I feel like reply to all should almost never be used.  It creates a lot of mail that people don't necessarily need (taking up server space), and frequently sends info to people who are not involved in whatever the discussion is.  This invites one more cook to the kitchen with their opinion of how something should work or be resolved, which is not always a good thing.  Again, just my opinion, and certainly there are times when it is a benefit, not a detriment.

I'm with ScooterSM on both counts here....after mistakenly sending many an email to the wrong person, I almost never put the persons email address in the "TO" field until i've finished the email, proofed it and attached anything that might need attaching.  Then I always double check.  This has helped me a lot in the past year.

I very rarely use "Reply to All" - sometimes responses are not everyone's business and I hate it when I get an email to me that's been "replied to all" that half the people on the list really don't need to see.

Also, I ocassionally have problems amending my groups in gmail, so when creating report groups, etc. I have taken to creating the group and then cutting and pasting it into a "sticky note" on my Mac, so I just cut and paste the full distribution list when sending out reports. 

[KMC]

Outlook also has a "recall message" feature, which has been a life saver more than once.  If someone has already opened the email there is nothing you can do, but otherwise it takes the message back.  This works really well for resending messages if you forgot the attachment.  HOWEVER, everyone who received the message gets a notice that they had a recalled email.

Careful with this feature - this will only work if you are using a Microsoft exchange server inside a domain.  i.e. if my email address is "kevin@xyz.com" and I send an email to bob@xyz.com, jim@xyz.com, cathy@gmail.com, and nancy@yahoo.com and I "recall send", it will recall from Bob and Jim as they are inside my domain (xyz.com) but it will not recall from any external domain, so Cathy and Nancy would still get my mail message.  Once a mail message is off of your local network and onto the net there's no practical way to get it back!

[ScooterSM]

True, thank you!  I should have been more specific about it only recalling messages sent internally.