We've all been there. It's late at night. And you send the email equivalent of the drunk dial. That e-mail message you can never get back. Well, it turns out you can. Kind of.

BigString is a new web-based email provider that lets you create self-destructing e-mail. Here's how it works:

You login to BigString and send an e-mail. Your recipient receives that message. But if you decide you'd rather withdraw the e-mail, you can go into your sent mail box, find the message you'd rather not have see the light of day, and click "self destruct." While the message header will still show up in the recipient's they won't be able to read it anymore.

That's because BigString converts your email messages to image files. When you click "self destruct," what you're actually doing is deleting that image from the server. Now when someone goes to read your message, they won't be able to access the image anymore.

Of course, this means they also won't be able to copy and paste from your e-mail. And if you happened to send something inappropriate in your subject header, you're out of luck.

As a standalone e-mail service, BigString has the usual bells and whistles. You get a 2GB mailbox with a free account. For $2.50 a month you get 5GB and 30 minutes of video mail storage.

[via Mashable]