Delete messages on WhatsApp

It is quite often people get into trouble for sending messages that we were not meant to send or that we are meant for someone else on social media and messaging services, hoping the message was deleted before the recipient read the message.

Fortunately, social media platforms and messaging services have assisted with that human error and granted the opportunity to delete messages instantly. A pioneer in that is the ‘Delete Messages’ feature by WhatsApp.

WABetaInfo reported “WhatsApp has made progress on its upcoming ‘Delete Message’ feature, which has been present in recent beta updates for Android,” as quoted by MyBroadBand.

The feature was first detected by WABetaInfo in October and initially named ‘Disappearing Messages’.

Once the feature is made available, the sender will be able to delete messages incorrectly sent to recipients, “users will be able to toggle it on or off for each chat”. And in groups, only group administrators will be allowed to control the ‘Delete Messages’ option.

WhatsApp has implemented time delays before messages are deleted:

  • Off
  • 1 hour
  • 1 day
  • 1 week
  • 1 month
  • 1 year

It is unclear whether the feature will be integrated in the updated version of the app for users, and the feature is currently not available for iOS users.