How long it takes involves several factors.

How large is the number of recipients from whom to request recall?
Is this across one Exchange org or several?
Is Outlook open on all of the recipients' machines?
How much other Outlook traffic is there on the Exchange network at the same
time?
Is the message recall both internal and external?

You can see that factors not under the control of the sender are in play.
Best practice is to save to draft any message that is questionable rather
than try message recall to correct bad judgement.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
ALWAYS post your Outlook version.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, RJ asked:

| I received a question from one of my users the other day about how
| long it takes for the message recall function to work in Outlook
| 2003. I had never really looked into this before, but it looks like
| this is not an immediate action and can actually take 3 - 4 minute to
| remove the message from the recipients inbox as long as they have
| Outlook open.
|
| Is message recall supposed to take this much time, or is there some
| other issue at play here?
|
| Thanks.