How to send self destructing email in Gmail

Okay, let me take the instance of Mission Impossible movie where Tom cruise receives a secret message in every part of MI movie which gets destroyed after some fixed time of opening the message. The same feature was recently included by Google in Gmail but don’t worry your laptop or phone won’t get damaged like in the movie.

There are some times when you send confidential email with a lot of sensitive data whose security and privacy must be taken seriously. So, how would ensure the security of your confidential email? There is way to that, the new feature of Gmail lets you send self destructing email which will destroy the email send by you after the set time. The same feature is also present in Facebook messenger and they call it “secret message“.

Also Read – Unsubscribe from spam emails all at once

Now you must be thinking what a big deal, i can forward or backup the email and keep a copy of that. It’s not that easy, the email can’t be forwarded or copied to anywhere even the attachments can’t be downloaded.

You can just view the email that’s it nothing else. This way you can ensure that your confidential email is always safe and secure. Now let’s see how we can send a self destructing email in detail.

How to send self destructing email in Gmail

1. Log in to your Gmail
2. Click on compose and type the message and attach any file you want to send.
3. Now click on confidential mode (circled option in red).
4. Set an expiration date for the email, you can choose between one day up to 5 years.
5. There is another added security which lets you password protect your email.

There you get two options – No SMS passcode and SMS passcode.

• No SMS passcode– Non Gmail recipients will get a link in inbox to view the email in new tab while Gmail users can directly view the email. Select this option if you don’t want password protection and click on save and then sent.
• SMS Passcode– Recipients will get a passcode via SMS to view the email. Choose this option to password protect your email for added security and click on save. Then click on Send and it will ask you to enter the recipient’s number, after entering click on send.

Now all your recipients will receive email, open email and click on “Send passcode” and you will receive a passcode on your number. Next enter the passcode and click on “Submit” to view the confidential email.

How to revoke access to send emails

This may not happen always but there are chances that you could accidentally send the confidential email to a wrong person. In that case you can revoke the email from accessing it. Go to “Sent” and open the desired email, there you will find an option to “Remove access”. Click on it and the email will become inaccessible to every recipient.

Are you thinking of a way to overcome this security? Well as we know nothing is 100% secure, you can always take a screenshot of that and Google does not prevent your “Confidential” email from taking screenshot (What the….). I think Google must take some extra measures to ensure that this feature is worth using.

Also Read – How to move emails from one Gmail to another

Finally this tutorial about how to send self destructing email comes to an end. If you get stuck at any step, always feel free to ask in comment section below.

Got any thoughts about this article? Let us know in the comment section below. Enjoy!