Excited About Gmail’s ‘Undo Send’ Feature? Then You Should Check Out Sidekick

Gmail has just rolled out, perhaps, the most useful update. Yes, we’re talking about the ‘Undo Send’ feature. Google had been working on this feature for the past six years, and the work is now an official setting in the Gmail interface. As the name suggests, Undo Send pauses posting your email for a few seconds after you click Send, so you can take it back if you, for example, spell someone’s name wrong. When it started in 2009, Undo Send would pause sending your emails for five seconds, but now, it lets users choose if they want to retain their mail for 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds.

But, when you send an urgent email to someone, how do you know whether they have opened the mail or not? For example, when you are applying for a job, sending an email to a valued company, knowing when it is opened is necessary information. If you want to really control your email, Sidekick is what you should check out.

Sidekick is developed by HubSpot, a software company formed by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. This app is installed as a Chrome extension and can be accessed using your Gmail account. But don’t worry; Sidekick can also be accessed by Outlook desktop, Apple Mail and Outlook.com.

But, you should also know that Sidekick could be used against you. The next time you say, “I didn’t see that email,” when you actually have opened it, the sender may have proof that your statement just isn’t true.

Here’s everything this nifty addition can do:

To get started with Sidekick, you need to create a free account here. You can also login using your Google account, which is a convenient sign-up process. After that, you can install Sidekick Chrome extension from here.

Once everything is configured, Sidekick will take up the responsibility to track down which of your emails have been opened and which remain unopened. To make things more amazing, Sidekick also keeps track whether links inside the mail have been clicked on or not. You also have the option to ‘untrack’ any email too.

Sidekick can also show you the information of people to whom you are sending a mail. When you receive an email, the Sidekick sidebar will show you your email history, links to their social media accounts and information about their company if the email was sent from a business account.

But, the newest feature of this app is the Scheduling option. This is a gift especially for people who live in different time zones. After you have composed a mail, you will see an option to schedule the mail to whatever time fits you. Awesome, right?

Sidekick also has free iOS and Android apps, which let you track everything from your smartphone. Although the scheduling feature is yet to come out with the mobile version.

Sidekick is free for unlimited tracking the first month you register. After that, you get 200 free tracks per month. If you find that you want unrestricted tracks, you can pay a monthly fee of $10.

It is great that slowly, many mail apps are coming up that give users the power to monitor and control emails as per their convenience.

Watch the video below to get a better idea about how Sidekick is helpful.