"Resend" can mean three different things

A signature stalls and the instinct is to "just resend it." But resend is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and the three things people mean by it are not the same:

  1. Nudge the same request — the document is fine, the signer just hasn't acted. You want another email pointing at the same pending signature.
  2. Fix a delivery problem — the email never arrived, bounced, or went to spam, and you need the request to actually reach the signer.
  3. Send a corrected document — the document itself was wrong, and "resend" really means replace.

Each one is a different action with a different effect on your record. Picking the wrong one is how you end up with duplicate envelopes, a confused signer staring at two links, or a corrected version competing with the broken original. Here's how to tell them apart and do each cleanly.

Case 1: the signer just hasn't acted — remind, don't duplicate

This is the most common case. The request was delivered, maybe even opened, and then nothing. The right move is not to create a new request — it's to send a reminder against the existing one, which re-delivers the same signing link to the same recipient and records the nudge as a reminder event in the audit trail.

You can do this two ways, and they're complementary:

  • Automatic reminders — set the envelope to nudge unsigned recipients on a schedule (say, every three days) so you don't have to chase manually. This is the reminders-and-expiration machinery doing the work for you.
  • A manual resend — when you want to nudge now (a deal's closing, you just got off the phone), trigger a one-off reminder to the pending signer immediately.

The key property of both is that they point at the same pending signature. The signer gets a fresh email with the original link; nothing duplicates. Use the tracking view to confirm the request is genuinely pending-and-unsigned before you nudge — if they already signed, there's nothing to resend.

Case 2: the email never arrived — fix delivery first

If the signer says they never got it, resending the same way may just fail the same way. Before you nudge again, work through the delivery problem: a wrong or mistyped address, a spam filter, or an aggressive corporate gateway. We cover the full checklist in the signer didn't receive the email, but the short version is: verify the address is right before you resend. If it was wrong, you don't just resend — you correct the recipient (or reassign it to the right person) and then send. Resending to a bad address a second time accomplishes nothing.

Case 3: the document was wrong — void and re-send, don't reminder

This is the case people most often get wrong. If the document has a mistake — wrong figure, wrong clause, a field in the wrong place — you do not reminder the existing request. A reminder just re-delivers the flawed document. Instead, void and correct it: voiding cleanly invalidates the outstanding request so the broken version can't be signed, and then you send the corrected document as a new request. (If an approver caught the problem, "Send back to sender" returns the still-editable envelope to you without even needing a void.)

Why be strict about this? Because if you send a corrected version without voiding the original, you now have two live requests for the "same" document — and nothing stops the signer from signing the wrong one. Voiding first removes that ambiguity and keeps the audit trail honest: one request voided with a reason, one corrected request signed.

A quick decision guide

  • Delivered, unsigned, document is fine → reminder the same request (auto or manual). Don't duplicate.
  • Never arrived → fix the address or delivery issue first, then resend or reassign.
  • Document is wrong → void and re-send the corrected version. Never reminder a flawed document.

The takeaway

"Resend" splits into three jobs. When the signer is just slow, reminder the existing request — automatically on a schedule or manually on demand — so the same link goes back out and the nudge is logged, with no duplicate envelopes. When the email never landed, fix the delivery problem before you try again. When the document itself is wrong, void it and send a corrected request rather than re-delivering the mistake. Match the action to the actual problem and the signer sees exactly one clear request, while your audit trail stays clean. Start free and set automatic reminders so most follow-ups happen without you lifting a finger.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice.