Success or Failure of a Message Recall

The success or failure of a recall depends on the recipients' settings in Microsoft Office Outlook. The following four scenarios explain what happens in various situations, and an additional scenario describes the recall of a message sent to a Microsoft Exchange public folder.

Action	Result
You send an e-mail message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, underTracking Options, the Process requests and responses on arrival check box is selected. (To view this setting, on the Toolsmenu, click Options, click E-mail Options, and then click Tracking Options.)	Both the original message and the recall message are received in the recipient's Inbox. Assuming the original message has not been read, the original message is deleted and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, deleted the message from his or her mailbox.  NOTE   If the original message is marked as read (viewing in the Reading Pane is not reading in this scenario) when the recall message is processed, the recipient is informed that you, the sender, want to delete the message, but the message remains in the recipient's Outlook folder.
You send an e-mail message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, underTracking Options, the Process requests and responses on arrival check box is not selected. (To view this setting, on the Toolsmenu, click Options, click E-mail Options, and then click Tracking Options.)	Both the original message and the recall message are received in the recipient's Inbox. On the recipient's computer, one of the following occurs:   If the recipient opens the recall message first, the original message is deleted, and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, have deleted the message from their mailbox.   If the recipient opens the original message first, the recall fails, and both the original and recall messages are available.  NOTE   If the original message is marked as read (viewing in the Reading Pane is not reading in this scenario) when the recall message is processed, the recipient is informed that you, the sender, want to delete the message, but the message remains in the recipient's Outlook folder.
You send an e-mail message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, either by rule or by action of the recipient, the original message is moved to another folder and the recall message remains in the Inbox (or it is moved to another folder as well).	As long as the recall message and the original message exist in separate folders, the recipient receives a message indicating that a recall attempt failed. This occurs regardless of the Outlook configurations and the read status of the message. The original message and the new message are both available to the recipient.  NOTE   If the recipient read the original message and then marks it as unread, Outlook treats it as if it had never been read and recalls it successfully.
You send an e-mail message to someone. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one. On the recipient's computer, either by rule or by action of the recipient, both messages are moved to the same folder. This results in behavior similar to that which occurs when Outlook is not configured to automatically process messages.	On the recipient's computer, one of the following occurs:   If the recipient opens the recall message first, the original message is deleted, and the recipient is informed that you, the sender, deleted the message from his or her mailbox.   If the recipient opens the original message first, the recall fails, and both the old and new messages are available.  NOTE   If the recipient read the original message and then marked it as unread, Outlook treats it as if it had never been read and recalls it successfully.
You send an e-mail message to a public folder. You recall the original message and replace it with a new one.	One of the following occurs:   If the recipient who reads the recall message has read access to all the items in the public folder but did not read the original message, the recall succeeds, and only the new message remains. You, the sender, receive a message indicating that the recall succeeded.   If the recipient has already marked the original message as read, he or she is informed that the recall failed, and only the recall message is deleted. If a user with any other public folder rights opens the recall message, the recall fails, and the user receives a message indicating that the recall failed. Both the old and new messages remain in the public folder.   NOTES     If the recipient reads the original message and then marks it as unread, Outlook treats it as if it had never been read and recalls it successfully.   In the public folder, it is the reader's rights, not the sender's, that determine the success or failure of the recall.