how private message works (or doesn't)

[wombat]

Can anyone explain how I get a PM to move from my Outbox to my Sentbox, that is, to actually send it?  I wrote one at 1:00 today and it's still sitting there seven hours later.  The last one I wrote sat in the Outbox for a while and then mysteriously went out of its own accord.  Maybe I'm a total idiot but I can't find anything else to even try clicking on or anything.

[jough]

It took me a while to figure this out.

It remains in your Outbox until the recipient has picked it up.  In the meantime you can edit the message, delete it, etc.

When the other person picks it up, it is moved to your sentbox and a copy is copied to their in-box.

This is so you can take-back a message you accidentally sent, I guess.

[wombat]

Oh, how confusing.  Thank you.

[misterhaan]

that reminds me of this useless feature outlook/exchange has -- if you send out an e-mail and then change your mind, you can recall it.  this has the effect of dropping what looks like another e-mail but with a slightly different 'unread' icon.  when someone opens this fake e-mail, it just pops up a little box stating that the sender would like to recall their message.  all you can do is click okay, and the original e-mail will still be sitting there.
so why don't you just send a new e-mail that says "oops, i accidentally sent that to the whole company instead of my girlfriend.  sorry about that!" --it seems to make a lot more sense than that stupid recall 'feature'

[CortJstr]

that reminds me of this useless feature outlook/exchange has -- if you send out an e-mail and then change your mind, you can recall it.  this has the effect of dropping what looks like another e-mail but with a slightly different 'unread' icon.  when someone opens this fake e-mail, it just pops up a little box stating that the sender would like to recall their message.  all you can do is click okay, and the original e-mail will still be sitting there.

Actually if you happen to open the Recall message while the mistake message is still unread they'll both be deleted once you click okay. But if you've already read the mistake message then nothing happens.

Of course since most people read their e-mail oldest to newest this almost never happens.