WhatsApp has introduced a new feature to its app which allows users to delete sent messages. This ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature allows you to recall messages sent on individual chats as well as WhatsApp groups, and is available across different platforms, such as Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. One of the biggest use cases of the Delete for Everyone feature can be when you send a message to the wrong chat, or if the message sent contains a mistake.
Messages that have been successfully deleted for everyone will be replaced with “This message was deleted” in your recipients’ chats. Similarly, if you see “This message was deleted” in a chat, it means that the sender deleted their message for everyone.
How to get the new WhatsApp ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature, and how it works:
- Firstly, you will need to download the latest version of WhatsApp on your phone. The recipient will also need to have the latest version installed on their device for the Delete for Everyone feature to work.
- Click on the message(s) you wish to delete
- Tap the trash icon on your screen
- A dialogue box will pop-up with the new option Delete for Everyone
Once you select the Delete for Everyone dialogue box, the sent message will be replaced with “You deleted this message”.
You will only be able to delete messages within seven minutes after sending. This means that once seven minutes have passed, there is no way to delete messages for everyone.
Apart from ‘Delete for Everyone’, WhatsApp has renamed the regular delete option, calling it Delete for Me. This, as before, allows users to delete the message they’ve sent or received from the device. However, this will have no effect on the recipients’ chats. This feature will not change anything on the recipients end and they can continue seeing the messages in their chat screen.
To delete messages for yourself, users can head to the chat containing the message they wish to delete and tap and hold the message to delete multiple messages at once. In this case, users will have to use tap Delete (the trash icon) at the top of the screen, and then select Delete for Me.
