Exchange Online Gets New Cloud-based Message Recall Feature to Retrieve Read Emails

Cloud Computing

Microsoft has released a new update that brings improvements to the Message Recall functionality in Exchange Online. The company has announced that the cloud-based feature enables customers to recall read messages.

The classic Message Recall feature enables users to retrieve unread emails from the mailboxes of the recipients. However, it doesn’t support recalling read messages and only works if the recipient also uses Outlook for Windows. Microsoft also mentioned that the average success rate of the classic feature is about 50 percent.

Microsoft has made several improvements that should significantly improve the recall success rates. According to the company’s internal testing, the new feature is more than twice as effective in successfully recalling messages. Moreover, the recall process now takes place in the cloud, which allows recipients to use any email client synced with an Exchange Online mailbox.

“With millions of users with mailboxes in Microsoft 365, we’re now able to improve message recall by performing the recall directly against the recipients’ cloud mailboxes. So it will no longer matter which email client the recipient uses, the recall will happen in their cloud mailbox, and when the recipient’s email client syncs with their cloud mailbox, the message will be gone,” Microsoft explained.

Exchange Online Gets New Message Recall Feature to Retrieve Read Emails

In addition to the recipient’s inbox, the feature lets senders retrieve emails from any folder or sub-folder. Microsoft has also introduced a web-based message recall status report that makes it easier to monitor the recall status for all recipients. However, the report is currently limited to less than 50,000 recipients.

Exchange Online provides admin controls to disable message recall

For now, the new Message Recall feature doesn’t let Exchange Online customers recall messages sent to recipients outside of their own organization. Moreover, it won’t inform recipients that the message has been retracted from their mailboxes. Microsoft plans to add this capability in a future update.

Exchange Online Gets New Message Recall Feature to Retrieve Read Emails

Microsoft is gradually rolling out the new Message Recall feature to Exchange Online customers, and it’s expected to become generally available by mid-March. However, IT admins can turn off the feature for end users in their tenant via the EAC or Remote PowerShell.