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Postpone Email Sending?  (View post)

t xensen [PersonRank 4]

Monday, February 18, 2008
16 years ago16,516 views

This is something I've been waiting for, and I don't know why it is taking so long. If I can set a blog entry to post in three days, why can't I set an an accompanying e-mail for the same time?

AniMatrix84 [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Yes, I would love to see this option very soon as I would use it sometimes, not many. But sometimes it may be handy to do so.

And the todo list would be a great thing too, hope to see that one as quick as postponing :)

Yusuf [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #


Yes, yes, yes. This was one of my favorite features from Eudora 5, and then you had to have your email program running to have the mail sent.

Being able to set a future time for the mail to be sent would be so great.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

this is a much needed function. I think have mentioned it around here, a feature that is simiala to Outlook client

Michael [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

It's a feature in Outlook, and probably one of the biggest reasons I use Outlook at all. Under the options for an email, you can choose "Do not deliver before..." Unfortunately, it won't upload to the server until after the time you specify, which means if your computer is off at that point, it won't send until the next time you open outlook.

Gabriel Villa [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I think it s a much needed option. But hey, Google didn t even build this for Blogger, which is a no brainer feature.

maybe some day we can get this.
[Signature removed]

Andy Wong [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[Send] [Send in 5 minutes]
The interval can be changed in the Settings.

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

There's some extension for Thunderbird to do this.

Bill Curnow [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

This would be a wonderful feature to add.

I'm a workaholic and as a result I tend to work at all hours of the night. The problem is I don't want my employees and co-workers to feel they must work at all hours as well. Currently I write my emails and then leave them in Draft mode until morning when I have to remember to send those drafts. If I could set a "Post" date/time (localized to my timezone) than I can continue to work when I want, and not have to worry about remembering to send the message in the morning.

Zim [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes, we need this feature, mixed with the "Undo send" feature we talked earlier... It can be helpful!

LazyFishent [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

This should be addressed in gmail and I think it should be a two pronged approach. The following implementations, I think, would do a good job of keeping the interface simple and hiding the features from ubernooBs who are better off NOT knowing about new features. I do tech support for an ISP trust me this is important.

First they should implement an "Undo" feature for sent emails. Sounds tough but I'm not talking about snatching emails back from other POP servers. What I'm talking about is when I send an email it is queued to google servers, the destination address is verified, and all the other steps are done except actually sending it. When its ready to send (when gmail would usually switch from saying Sending.... to Your Message Has Been Sent) make it say "Your Message Will Now Be Sent | Undo". Then set it up so that Undo disappears after say 1 minute or whenever you leave that page. This will help with "senders remorse", when you forget to add that attachment or meeting location.

Then for actual postponed emails you would write the email and save as a draft. When you view the drafts page there would be a calendar Icon at the top that says "Send Later" when you click it you get a miniature Google calendar view and you can pick the year/month and/or time to send your email. Then it is taken out of your drafts and put somewhere else (like an Item in your calendar) until its sent (when it would show up in your sent items). You could even do a recurring event from the calendar entry for like a weekly reminder to your employees to turn in their sales, or a yearly reminder to your family about somebodies birthday.

Ianf [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

For such a "delay send-off" feature to become truly useful, it'd have to be implemented in really _unobtrusive_ fashion, and *NOT* require alarm-clock-like specification of target time for each postponed message. Mere 2 buttons, [Send] and [Send in X minutes] wouldn't do either. Maybe a few radio buttons, whose values (=different intervals to send from "now"), and labels, would be set once in Prefs?

Also, a much needed mailbox decluttering option of grouping selected messages into other existing, or new conversations/ threads. And the "any change to subject line (save for added leading 'Re:' and 'Fwd:') = creates new conversation" rule needs to be amended by, like, yesterday...

Personman [PersonRank 8]

16 years ago #

I would use delayed email sending every day, if it existed in gmail. It would make my life much, much better. It's been possible for decades from reasonably powerful desktop/command line email tools, and there's no reason why it shouldn't exist on the web too.

Andrei Terente [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

This is a future that i'm waiting to see for a long time. It would be a grate way to get ahead of the competition like with all the other grate futures gmail offers. I hope somebody at google will take a note of this post and maybe will see it applied soon.

George R [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The below helpful piece discusses postponed delivery.

http://www.digitalalchemy.tv/2007/06/schedule-emails-for-future-delivery.html

There are a number of sites that let you schedule future delivery of an e-mail. Most of them have you originate the mail from there, possibly providing your own "from" or "reply" address. Below is a small list.

I have not yet tried LetterMeLater (below). It seems to provide many desired features. It says you can send e-mails or SMS messages with future delivery dates You can edit them prior to the delivery time. You can send mails from your own e-mail program, addressed to their server, which will forward it at the appropriate time.

Another similar feature is sending a sealed (encrypted) e-mail now that can not be opened until some time or event in the future.

Below are some sites that provide future delivery. Note I have not tried them all.

http://www.lettermelater.com
http://mailtothefuture.org
http://www.mailtothefuture.com (discontinued)
http://www.futureme.org
http://www.latergator.ca (requires login every 90 days)

There are many more reminder services for sending messages to yourself.

David M. Ewalt wrote a Forbes magazine story, "E-Mail Time Capsule", about many of these issues and the difficulties delivering years in the future.

http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/21/email-future-time-capsule_cx_de_comm05_1024email.html

If you are scheduling delivery years in the future there may be many problems. Does the server exist? Is the e-mail address still valid? Is the e-mail address still checked? Is the intended recipient alive? Is there some anti-spam or other required protocol that is required in the future?

LubsyB [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

YES this is needed.

www.lettermelater.com is great. As George R mentioned, you can use your own program. Example:

To: me[put at-character here]lettermelater.com
Subject: Don't forget the milk!

EMAIL BODY:
To: my[put at-character here]husband.com
When: Today 4:30pm
Don't forget to get milk on your way home!

This is stored in your online LML account until it is sent, so you could go and cancel it at any time before sending.

HTML and attachments are supported. Recurring emails are allowed. I use it all the time! Once a week, I write emails to all my friends with birthdays that week, set to send on their birthday. I'm also on a message board that doesn't allow Sunday posts, so this enables me to answer posts as I want to, and just schedule them for Monday.

I have the TB extension mentioned, and it is way complicated. Plus, with LML, you don't have to be online, and your program doesn't have to be open for it to be sent.

linda lee [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

my son past away last year,,someone email,me a very upsetting email to me,thur his book,,,,i called the jones co,sheriff department and they made a report,,but i need to know who this peason is,,,i need some help..i know nothing about gmail..i'm email any boby who can help me ty

B.G. [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I would definitly use this feature. Also, I have a boss who likes to see his people work like animals, so this way I could type emails to him during the workday and then have the email client send it at say 3am or on Saturday.

Voyagerfan5761 [PersonRank 3]

16 years ago #

Quite useful, potentially, but needs to be unobtrusively implemented, as others have said.

PS: What's linda's post say? I can't read it with all the commas and no spaces and whatnot.

Jusin [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

It can be in exchange mail for long long time.

natassa [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

This is a great idea -and very useful, too!!!

  

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes, give that to us!!! ;-)

Hanan Cohen [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

To really work, it should be chosen by the user to be the default.

Also, there should be an option to write a short reminder sentence specifying why.

The action should be:

"click to cancel posponed send"

followed by

"Are you absolutely sure? You wanted Gmail to remind you "I want to be able to rethink before hurting anyone".

Ianf [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Hold on! [sic!] I thought we were discussing delay-mail feature in Gmail, and other such improvements, rather than (current crop of half-baked) third-party services offering said functionality, like these mentioned by George R. (http://blogoscoped.com/forum/123997.html#id124025).

I call them all half-baked[*] at best, because not a single one of them guarantees that mail OF ANY SIZEABLE FUTURE DATE will be delivered. Even the forbes.com's one-off email time capsule project, which goes to some lengths to ensure that deposited messages will be sent off (=doesn't equal "delivered") up to the year 2025, doesn't guarantee that (little did they suspect that their chosen partner-in-redundancy, Yahoo, may cease to exist altogether.... and soon enough).

Sadly, where assured future message deliveries are concerned, we first need a paradigm shift in thinking: deposited mail must be "targeted" (future recipient identified) not only with email address, but also with recipient's vital identity data, social security number, etc; and, for yet-unborn recpients, an unambiguous descriptor of potential future family relative, or other definable entity ... ("grandchild of my daugther born 11 Jan 1984" ; "administrator of Asthall Manor 3016")

And then there has to exist a framework for such deliveries, how to make it happen if address bounces, or missing... a mechanism "lurking" in the background of our lives, with enough backend checks and balances, AND a parallell, perhaps voluntary, MANUAL staff with a 'detectivish bent' to ensure high rate of success (however one defines it).

Because in the case of yet-unborn "addressees," ie. the truly interesting application of this, nothing but human intervention will do.

Dave Winer has some interesting things to say on a related issue:
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/03/01/preservingIdeas.html
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/scripting-news-for-312007/#comment-43389

[*] proprietess of http://halfbakery.com once proposed a similar service called delay.com

jarekpotiuk [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I'd LOVE that feature :)

Jozy [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

This is a feature I'm waiting for a long time as well. I've sent is as a suggestion on http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=suggest
You should do the same :)

Andy [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Would be a really great feature. You can also use it as a quick reminder service. Send and email to yourself or to some other people to remind them.

Logineo [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Definitely, I'd love that.
Another related feature would be a way to postpone the sending until after having clicked 'send' (a bit like Outlook, where you can configure it to send mails only if you click manually on 'send/receive', or for example, automatically one minute after). This feature has saved my life more than once, when I realized that I had made a terrible mistake in my email and then I really appreciated the fact that it was not already gone!

Jay [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I have longed for this feature for since I started using gmail.

As a related aside, I would love to see gmail integration with gcal such that I could use the calendar for email scheduling related to events. Party invitations, or emails to others for significant events... you know, go ahead and type the happy birthday email now, and then the day before, I get an email reminder that the email is going to be sent, and then the day of, my pre-typed email is sent to that person.

Peter Stinson [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

This would be a huge plus for Gmail. At work, we use Outlook which, of course, has a delay feature. I've been looking for the same in Gmail since I started using it.

martin english [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Ianf reffered to <i>that mail OF ANY SIZEABLE FUTURE DATE </i> (http://blogoscoped.com/forum/123997.html#id124041)

I'm not interested in delaying my mail by 12 months; I'm only interested in a 1 to say, 168 hour delay

Ianf [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Objection noted. There's however a difference between "personal reminders" and "future mail deliveries" – we were discussing the latter. As to the former being implemented as some special class of messages – I beg to differ.

Personal reminders --sent, I take it, to the default mail address should of course be available/ settable right within Gmail, but with their own distinctive GUI (within Google' KISS params!) to amplify their significance.

As for mail *ASSURED* of delivery at SIZEABLE FUTURE DATES being presently unattainable goal, and thus chief "nut to crack" – I stand by me statement.

jimstips [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I'd love to be able to set a future or delayed send date as well either by specifying a date/time, or by choosing from some pre-defined delay times. Then, have an Outbox "view" that shows what is queued up to send with capabilities of reverting selected messages to "Draft" status, deleting selected messages, or changing the send time.

JDT [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Yep. I've been asking for this feature for more than a year. I'd like to schedule posts in Blogger, too.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

JDT: You *can* schedule posts in Blogger now...

http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-feature-scheduled-posts.html

(As mentioned in the post.)

Shankar Reddy [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I am waiting!!! :)

dDas-edEn [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Agreed! I'm one among those zillions of emailers who have wondered why even the most popular email portals do not allow you set the auto-dispatch of an email to a future (specific) date.!!?

I feel it is a must-have option and would be used by many email users (even those who have never thought about it). Google Mail must have this feature added – and I don't know why this was never thought of by the email service providers who started operations much before Google and have, at a time, ruled the email space on the web.

I further doubt if any of the Premium (paid) Email accounts also had this feature available. I also remember recommending this feature to a number of these email providers through their feedback links – but they all fell into deaf ears or unthoughtful bosses :)) – for the technology was never neither unknown nor impossible.

edn.s60.pm.080224

jim goodson [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

YES!
As an old person walking in remote wilderness areas by myself, I've been hoping for such a capability.
I write my brother an EMAIL for delivery 2 hours after I should be back. If I get back OK I cancel it. Otherwise he gets an EMAIL with my route details etc. Of course he can call me and ask, "Hey jerk why didn't you cancel your EMAIL thingee", if i mess up.
In my opinion, a lot better than always telling people where you are going since you "always" come back.

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