Join our Waitlist for Expert Advice!

Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can. Pluto Mail lets you 'unsend' messages, edit unopened ones and choose a shelf-life for all your email transactions.

By Laura Entis

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Ever send an email and immediately regret it? Or realize you've misspelled the recipient's name, and want to correct it? Or just don't like the idea of a catty remark about a co-worker sitting in a friend's inbox for all eternity? Is the inherent permanency of email crippling your style?

If you answered 'yes' to any of the above, Harvard Law students David Gobaud and Lindsay Lin believe they've cooked up a solution: Enter Pluto Mail, a free Web-based email service or, more succinctly, the Snapchat of email. (The name originates from the fact that Pluto's planetary status was doled out, and then abruptly rescinded – Similarly, "if you have second thoughts about something you said, our service allows you can take it back," explains Lin.)

Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can.
David Gobaud and Lindsay Lin, co-founders of Pluto Mail

Thanks in part to Facebook fatigue, as well as growing concerns about data breaches and NSA surveillance, Gobaud and Lin believe that people increasingly want their online exchanges to mirror their offline ones: impermanent, untraceable and therefore less restricted. "People self-censor themselves online," Gobaud says. "But if you have a conversation with a friend in person, you're not worried that that it will follow you for the rest of your life."

Related: 5 Reasons Every Business Should be on Snapchat

Pluto Mail's central selling point is its ease of use. It's not really an email provider – you need to authenticate your main email address to sign up – which means the service isn't limited to Pluto's Web interface; it can also be used on email clients like Gmail, Outlook and Apple mail. Unlike encryption services, which need to be downloaded and installed by both parties, recipients aren't required to use Pluto or install anything for the service to work.

Similar to Snapchat, Pluto Mail allows you to choose when your email expires (although the options, of course, are far vaster). Do you want it to vanish ten days after you've sent it, regardless of whether it's been read? Five minutes after it's been opened? Two seconds after it's been sent, just to mess with someone? Because while you can delete emails after you've sent them you can't erase their subject lines from a recipient's account. Say you send an email to your friend with the title: Top Secret, and then delete the message before she reads it. The subject line will remain in her inbox, except when opened, the email will simply state: "This message has expired."

Like with Snapchat, Pluto Mail has an obvious loophole: if a recipient takes a screenshot of your email, it he or she can then save it forever.

Ever Want to 'Unsend' an Email? Now You Can.

Related: Mixed Blessings: 4 Ways Computers Forever Changed How We Work

Dodge the screenshot scenario, though, and once your email is deleted, it's truly gone. "In settings, the user can turn on auto eliminate so that when an email expires, we delete it from our servers immediately," Gobaud explains. He insists that Gmail's servers don't hold onto the email either and that, after a maximum of three days, the email disappears from Pluto Mail's backup server. In other words, your email is truly and completely erased.

"From a security perspective," says Lin, "ephemerality can be very beneficial." While Pluto Mail has generated excitement among people like herself and Gobaud (i.e. the young and tech savvy), Lin says there's also been a lot of interest from small businesses who want more control over their ability to manage confidential information.

Both Lin and Gobaud predict a seismic shift – anticipated by Snapchat's popularity – in how we use and think about data. "There's a trend towards a more forgettable internet," Gobaud says. "Humans don't have perfect memories. Computers do. And I don't think a world of perfect memories facilitates natural communication between people."

While Pluto Mail is currently still in beta, you click on this link to sign up.

Related: Jimmy Carter: I Send Snail Mail for Fear of NSA Surveillance

Laura Entis is a reporter for Fortune.com's Venture section.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Business News

Thousands of Oasis Reunion Tour Tix Get Nixed — Instead of Fighting Each Other, the Gallagher Brothers Go to War With Resellers

Oasis is reportedly canceling thousands of tickets that were listed on the secondary market.

Leadership

How Extreme Customer Service Creates Loyal Customers and Sparks Business Domination

How to create customer loyalty and use extreme customer service as a competitive force to dominate your market: free training you can use now.

Business News

Starbucks Is Ditching Olive Oil Coffee From Its 'Overly Complex' Menu

The move is part of an effort to turn around lagging sales.

Business News

Reddit Is Profitable for the First Time in Nearly Two Decades

Reddit hit an all-time high in its number of daily users, too.

Business News

You Have One Month Left to Buy a House, According to Barbara Corcoran. Here's Why.

"If you are planning on waiting a year and seeing where interest rates go, you are out of your mind," Corcoran said.