You cannot. It probably was received within a few minutes, possibly even seconds. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recall_a_message Emails can only be recalled if you are sending to someone on the same internal server which has set up the facility providing email has not been read. Exchange clients can recall sent emails if email has not been read. So if using an outlook exchange account it might be possible, but again you need to have realised this almost immediately. If you use the gmail webmail account via a browser, I believe you have up to 30 seconds to recall an email. But you do have to set this up in the 'Settings' . Emails are not actually recalled, they are delayed in sending. In Thunderbird, there is a 'Send Later' option so email is stored in 'Outbox' until you choose to manually send. This offers the opportunity to read and stop email. You could also use an addon extension called 'Send Later'. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/send-later-3/?src=search?src=search This also puts emails in the Outbox, but instead of you manually sending you can set up a time delay before it actually sends.