Embarrassing Emails and Texts That Couldn’t Be Unsent
We all wish there was an app or software that would allow us to pluck a message out of cyberspace. Sometimes you hit that “send” button without a second thought, but once you’ve realized your mistake your heart drops straight into your stomach. Butt dialing and autocorrect fails are one thing, but writing out a highly personal email or text and sending it to the wrong person?
That’s a whole new level of embarrassment. We think it’s safe to say that every one of us has experienced this on some level. Maybe you accidentally sent your crush a confession of love or forwarded a gossipy email to the whole company.
We’ve compiled the most embarrassing texts and emails that couldn’t be unsent in time.
1. It’s a Spam Link
We’re not sure how a link to something this inappropriate ended up in this guy’s work email, but it happened and he had to figure out a creative way to deal with it. After realizing his mistake he was probably breaking out in a cold sweat, that kind of faux-pas might’ve earned him a meeting with Human Resources. But he was quick on his feet…
Instead of trying to distract from the one accidental email, he sent the same link out to several other coworkers. Then he was able to claim that his email was compromised and that the link was actually a virus. At that point, no one would have dared click it, what a brilliant strategy!
2. Sent to All His Students
This professor must have been pretty sleep deprived when he sent out this email at one o’clock in the morning. The rest of the message checks out, but he definitely copied the wrong link into the text. Now his entire class will know all about how he likes viewing naughty videos. How could he ever show his face in class again?
We’re wondering how the Dean reacted once this news was brought to his attention, there’s no way an entire class of college students kept quiet about something like this. If only the professor had looked over his email before sending then this whole fiasco could’ve been avoided. He’s definitely learned a lesson for the future!
3. I am Afraid
Parents often have a difficult time figuring out new technology, which might contribute to all the accidental emails and texts they send. This mother was writing out a pretty reasonable email to an accounting firm when she prematurely hit the send button. Normally this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the place her sentence got cut off was pretty hilarious.
Jeffrey was probably weirded out to receive an email that simply said “I am afraid”. We’re guessing that he’s never gotten an email that strange during his entire career, and had absolutely no idea how to respond to it. Hopefully, the mom was able to write back quickly and explain her mistake before Jeffrey got too spooked.
4. Adam’s Friend isn’t the Sharpest
The most logical thing to do when finding a lost phone is to call or text the last person the phone owner spoke with. In this case, this helpful stranger reached a friend named Adam and was hoping he’d be able to contact the person who had lost their phone. Unfortunately, Adam wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and wasn’t getting the picture clearly.
The conversation ends with Adam texting his friend…using the number of the phone that was lost. The person who found the phone is probably wondering whether it’s worth the effort to return it in the first place. We’re guessing he searched through the contact list to find someone a little bit more intelligent to help out.
5. A Chilli Beef Recipe
When people are on the job hunt they tend to send out dozens of emails with their resumes attached, hoping to get a call back from one of their applications. While overwhelmed with searching for employment, it’s possible that one or more emails will have some kind of minor mistake. But in Heather’s case, she managed to screw up pretty royally.
Instead of sending a potential employer her CV, she accidentally attached a recipe for chili beef by Jamie Oliver. We’re sure the recipe was top-notch, but we’re guessing that’s not what the HR recruiter was really looking for. Heather probably didn’t get this job, but we hope she can look back at this and laugh.
6. Damn You Autocorrect!
It looks like this text conversation was so cringey that someone printed it out to save and remember forever. Omar received a pretty long and serious message from a coworker, or possibly his boss. When you get a message like that you want to respond as soon as possible, but maybe Omar should’ve put a little more thought into his reply before sending it.
Autocorrect was definitely not on his side when it changed the word “of course” to “of corpse”. Hopefully, the other person realized this was an honest mistake, and Omar’s explanation was enough to make up for the faux-pas. Still, we can’t think of a worse time for autocorrect to act up like that!
7. Mistakenly Accepted
Applying for college can be a very stressful period of time in a person’s life. There are SAT exams to be taken, and applications to be filled out and sent to various schools of their choice. The moment you finally get that acceptance email it feels like a weight off your shoulders, this is probably what this Twitter user had initially experienced.
But it looks like the college had made an embarrassing mistake. They had only accidentally sent him an acceptance email and had to go through the awkward process of informing him that he hadn’t really been accepted. What a devastating blow, we can’t even imagine what that must feel like. Cheer up Chey, we’re sure a different college will accept you!
8. Taken Out of Context
Sometimes the way you phrase a sentence can give it an entirely different meaning. The first email seems to email that this person had found a watch that belonged to a Black man. How could they be so sure? We’re guessing several students and faculty members had asked him that question, which is why he had to clarify in a second email.
What he meant to say was that he found a man’s watch that was black. A simple switch of adjectives could have helped him avoid sending this confusing and “ill-considered” message. It doesn’t hurt to take a second look at your email before sending it, you might end up saving yourself some time and embarrassment!
9. A Nicolas Cage Attachment
It always helps to double-check the document you’ve attached to your email, just in case. We all have some strange and bizarre things floating around on our desktop, if you click on the wrong item you might end up in the same situation as Vanessa. She probably realized her terrible mistake once it was too late. It almost looks like Nicholas Cage’s face is mocking her error.
We’re not sure why someone would have this weird photo of Nick Cage on their computer in the first place, but that’s all the more reason to make sure the attachment you’re sending is the correct one. The recruiter who received this probably had a very good laugh, and hopefully, she gave Vanessa a second chance to send her actual resume.
10. Don’t Email Under the Influence
You might begin to feel dizzy as your eyes sort through this absolute mess of an email. Who in their right mind would send something so oddly worded? Someone who had just gotten back from the dentist and was still under the influence of laughing gas, that’s who. It would’ve been a better idea if Abby had simply waited for the effects to wear off.
But she didn’t and this was the result of that poor decision. From the misspelled words to the illogical sentences, this email was probably incredibly difficult for her professor to understand. The icing on the cake has to be the “love you bye” at the end of the message. Once Abby comes to her senses she’s really going to regret this.
11. The Professor Responds!
You don’t usually get to see the replies to these embarrassing emails, but this one is definitely an exception! It looks like Abby’s professor was more than a little understanding when he read the message she had sent. He correctly assumed that she had undergone the removal of her wisdom teeth and wasn’t in her right mind at the time.
He’s definitely a very cool professor if he was willing to take that email in stride, and he seems to be very comforting about the deadline of the paper. However, he wasn’t able to resist a cheeky comment at the end of the email, poking fun at Abby for her writing while she was still feeling the effects of the laughing gas.
12. Scooter Kid Signature
Email signatures are a pretty common way to end an online message professionally. Most people who work in big companies are given a signature with all their contact information, one that’s meant to be pasted at the end of each email they send. This Twitter user must’ve been sending out her emails in a hurry because she pasted something very strange in the place of her email signature.
We’re racking our brains trying to figure out why she’d have such a weird stock photo saved to her computer. It looks like she realized her mistake but instead of deleting the message, she sent it out. We can only imagine how confused the person receiving her email will be!
13. That’s Not a Doctor’s Note
When someone calls in sick to work or school it’s usually expected of them to bring in a doctor’s note. This Twitter user needed to provide proof for her absence on two different occasions, and she promised to send a soft copy as well as bring in a hard copy once she returned to class. But the “soft copy” she sent couldn’t be less similar to a doctor’s note.
It’s even easier to slip up when you’re sending an attachment via a cellphone, which is why it’s so important to check before you hit “send”. Now everyone will get to laugh at this hilarious sketch, most likely made by her niece or nephew.
14. A Matt Smith Superfan
You probably wouldn’t send your best friend the same email you’d send to your university professor. Unfortunately for Elisa, these two people in her life shared the same name, making it easy for her to mix up the two email addresses. Even more embarrassing was the subject of the email, it could’ve been something mundane, but instead it was extremely personal.
Apparently, she had meant to send her friend a compilation of photos of actor Matt Smith with some suggestive text. But as you already know, this email ended up being sent to her university professor, who now knows a little too much about Elisa’s celebrity crush. For her sake, we hope he never brings this up again!
15. Nos Vemos Pronto
Most people feel a little loopy after they’ve undergone surgery, usually due to the types of anesthesia they receive before the procedure. That’s why doctors ask patients to have someone ready to escort them home after surgery has finished, it’s too bad they don’t also remind them not to write any important emails! This Twitter user should’ve had her phone confiscated, maybe then she wouldn’t have written such an awkward message.
The email starts off with a very confusing misspelling of her boss’s name, and it only goes downhill from there. For some reason, she signs off the email with “see you soon” written in Spanish, despite the fact the rest of the email is in English!
16. I Am Worried
Sending an email before you’ve finished writing your message can result in some confusion, or in this case a LOT of confusion. Professor Allen probably felt like he had to clarify that he is not a student counselor who knows how to deal with student worries. If Carson caught his mistake in time he might’ve been able to send a follow-up email to clarify.
Hopefully, Carson sent a quick follow up and his worries are no more. We’re guessing things ended well, seeing as he decided to share his mistake on Twitter. When it comes to hilarious and harmless mistakes like these it doesn’t hurt to share them with the internet for a good laugh.
17. Repetitive Templates Don’t Always Work
People who work in recruitment usually have to send out a bunch of emails to potential employees, many of these are letting the applicant know that they have not been accepted for the position. Mistakes are bound to happen when so many emails are being sent out on a daily basis, but the one at the end of this message is particularly embarrassing.
How do you end up making a template that doesn’t include your company name by default? This person probably picked out a generic rejection template they found online and forgot to fill in all the relevant fields. Maybe they’ll be the one looking for a new job after this!
18. Cream Pie Special
Sometimes people of an older generation aren’t aware that certain words and phrases have a second, dirtier meaning. In an event that involves getting hit in the face with cream pies, this message seems innocent enough, but we think that most of the employees who read it had to giggle at the double entendre. You have to feel pretty bad for this poor woman, she had no idea what kind of message she just sent!
We hope someone was able to pull her aside and explain the double meaning of the term “cream pie”. It might embarrass her to know the truth, but that’s better than making the same mistake in another email!
19. Wrong Email Gone Right
Planning a wedding is no easy task. When coordinating the event with your family and bridesmaids your communication must be consistent and clear. It looks like this bride-to-be sent out an email asking for opinions on her wedding crown, but she was one letter off in the email address. As a result, she ended up reaching a random dude in Canada.
He took the email in good spirit, plus pointed out her mistake so she could re-send her message to the right address. He was even cool enough to give his opinion on her choice of wedding accessories! She clearly thought the exchange was hilarious and decided to share it on Instagram. Not all email mistakes have to be embarrassing!
20. Friend-Zoned Big Time
This guy decided to use the “oops, wrong number,” excuse as a way to backtrack on his confession of love gone wrong. Clearly, he thought the feelings were mutual, but he was very much mistaken. Instead of owning up to his incorrect assumption, he decided to play it cool and act like he meant to send the message to his mother instead.
We don’t think his friend was buying it, looks like she knew what his real intentions were all along. If this was truly an accidental text we do feel for the guy, but if not we think he should’ve just faced the music. Nothing is more embarrassing than being upfront with your feelings and then pretending it never happened.
21. April Fools!
Yeesh, we seriously don’t envy this guy who was so flat out rejected by his crush. It looks like he had been building up the courage to come forward with his true feelings, but when he did he didn’t end up getting the reaction he wanted. But instead of taking the blow and moving on, they decided to play the “April Fools” card to wriggle out of the awkward situation.
If this actually happened on April first then there’s a chance they were able to get away with it, but if not it just makes the situation even more awkward. April Fool’s has got to be the best day of the year to send a wrong text, it makes covering up for it so much easier!
22. Not the Tampon Patch!
Autocorrect tends to step in and change words around at the worst moment. When you’re sending out a quick text you might overlook spelling mistakes that have been “corrected” by your phone, that’s how you end up writing a weird message like this guy. We don’t know what a tampon patch is supposed to be, but we don’t think the kids would enjoy it very much.
It looks like the person he was writing to caught on to the autocorrect mistake and found it pretty hilarious. This is much less embarrassing than a lot of other typing mistakes, but it’s still a pretty funny scenario. It doesn’t hurt to give your text a once over before you hit send, even if it’s a short one!
23. The Surprise was Ruined
Surprise parties aren’t the most complicated thing to arrange, the main challenge is making sure the birthday person doesn’t find out. It looks like the dad who put together this little group chat had the right idea when it came to organizing the event, but he made one fatal mistake. He accidentally added Raquel, the birthday girl, to the chat about her surprise party!
Unless Raquel is the type of person who never checks her phone, we’re guessing the surprise has been totally ruined for her. But it’s the thought that counts, right? Raquel’s dad is probably feeling pretty sheepish now that he’s realized his mistake. Hopefully, the steak house will be good enough to make up for it!
24. I Have Rotten Children Group Chat
This definitely looks like a family group chat gone wrong. We’re guessing every member of the family is an admin in the group, and therefore has the ability to change the topic of the conversation to whatever they want. Apparently, they change the topics in order to make passive-aggressive jabs at each other.
Kind of hilarious if it’s all done in good humor, but if it’s serious then they might want to attend group therapy. There’s definitely a story behind all these changes to the conversation, we think that Kasey might be the golden child while her sibling is the trouble maker. Mom is just fed up with all the back and forth and wants to put an end to it!
25. Wrong Chat
When you’ve got several chats going on at the same time you might end up accidentally sending a message to the wrong contact. This can be especially embarrassing when you’re in a group chat, and end up sending a personal message to a bunch of people at the same time. Looks like Austin meant to send a loving message to his girlfriend, but it ended up in his sports group chat instead.
Luckily, no one took advantage of his vulnerability at that moment. Instead one of his pals commented on how adorable he thought the message was. Now that’s what we would call a wrong text gone right. Austin truly has some wholesome friends.
26. Dad Learning How to Text
This is less of an incorrect text and more of the type of weird message you’d get from a parent or relative. The way people of an older generation use technology can be pretty funny sometimes and this message is the perfect example of it. You’d think the family group chat would be used for slightly more important information, but dad just wants to share a photo of all these mushrooms.
It’s kind of nice that his kid can appreciate the contributions he makes to the group chat. His dad might have a bit of an odd sense of humor but that isn’t always a bad thing. Just so long as he keeps these photos confined to the family, we think he’s all good!
27. Let’s Talk…
This is the kind of bizarre image you would only send to a close friend or significant other. Sometimes these weird pictures are in-jokes that only certain people in your close circle would understand, which makes it all the more awkward when you end up sending it to a total stranger! Looks like this person realized their error pretty quickly and tried to rectify their mistake.
But the stranger they accidentally messaged was clearly very intrigued by the picture and wanted to hear more. What happens next? Does the original sender decide to continue the conversation, or would they be too freaked out by the stranger’s answer? Better make sure you enter that phone number correctly next time.
28. It’s Barabara, Not John
It would seem that Uncle David is still trying to get the hang of his messaging app. Instead of sending a text to one person, he opened up a group chat and roped a bunch of people into his conversation with John. In fact, we’re not even sure John is in this chat, which means he probably won’t end up seeing the message!
The most confused person here has got to be Barbara, she just can’t seem to figure out why she’s in this group chat and why Uncle David thinks her name is John. This conversation has definitely become a huge mess, we recommend Uncle David just give John a call instead of trying to text him.
29. Emailed the Wrong Image
When you’re trying to appeal an incorrect answer on a test it’s important to state your case as clearly as possible. Professors aren’t going to be super keen on changing the way they’ve corrected an exam, but the more proof you provide the more likely you are to get your grade changed. This woman might’ve wanted to look over such an important email before sending it.
Instead of sending a screenshot of the test question, Latisha sent a selfie she took. Granted, it is a very nice photo, but we don’t think it’s going to help convince her professor that she was correct. We don’t think her grade is going to go up after this faux-pas.
30. I’m Watching You!
There’s a lot of risk involved in throwing a party once your parents are away. Of course, it’s no big deal if you get their permission, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. This girl might have wanted to think twice before taking a photo of the evidence of her party, but unfortunately, she did and it ended up being sent to the worst person possible.
Instead of reaching her sister, the picture ended up being sent to her dad! Clearly, he’s pretty upset with her for breaking the house rules, and based on his expression we think she’s in for some disciplinary action once he gets home. A lesson learned for the future, don’t take photos of yourself disobeying your parents!
31. The Message Needed Context
This mom might have caused a terrible moment of turmoil for all her children. She simply wanted to share the fact that their dad had just bought a new boat, no doubt something he was very excited about. She typed out the message “daddy’s in heaven”, but neglected to attach a photo of him with his new purchase.
Obviously, all her children interpreted her text to mean that their father had passed away. We’re guessing her phone was blowing up with calls and messages asking for some kind of explanation. It’s a good thing that the news wasn’t what they expected, but they were probably freaking out for a good few minutes there. Mom will never leave out context like that again!
32. A Classic Email Typo
Here’s another case of autocorrect making a simple phrase into an incredibly awkward situation. All this person wanted to do was sign off their email with the words “kind regards”, but as you can see, that was not the end result. We wonder if they noticed their mistake after sending it or if someone had to point it out to them.
We’re assuming that this was a work email in a professional setting, which only makes the autocorrect mistake even more egregious. If there was anything that could convince you to double-check your emails it’s definitely this. Learn from this person’s mistake and you’ll never wind up in his shoes.
33. Texting Yourself
There are moments when we have a major brain fart and end up doing something like this. We wonder if this guy was high or boozed up when he sent this message to himself, and then actually replied to it! At least no one needs to know about his embarrassing text mistake, the secret is safe for as long as he wants it to be.
The person he intended on sending the message to is definitely not going to receive it. We wonder if this guy will ever realize his mistake, or if he’s just the type of oblivious person who would never end up noticing. We guess someone saw this text at some point because it ended up being shared online.
34. Texting While High
The fact that this person admitted that they were is explanation enough for a text like this. It looks like his trip was intense enough that he wanted to send his friend a message about it. Probably not having a whole lot to answer, his friend simply asked if he could move. The reply he ended up giving was pretty funny and expected for someone who isn’t totally sober.
He clearly didn’t understand his friend’s question, which isn’t exactly surprising. We’re just wondering whether he was high after some kind of wisdom tooth removal, or if he had just smoked something green. Either way, this is a great example for why you shouldn’t text under the influence!
35. Texting While Drunk
This looks like a non-sober text gone right. Instead of sending something compromising or embarrassing, Emily wrote an extremely enthusiastic message to her friend about how much she loves her. As is the case with most drunk people, Emily didn’t really know when to stop and ended up sending a whole string of progressively nonsensical messages.
By the last message, you have her quoting the song Dynamite by Taio Cruz, which is more of a party anthem than a confession of love. We wonder how Emily is going to look back at these messages once she’s sobered up, most likely she and her BFF will have a good laugh and maybe they’ll party together instead of separately next time.