WhatsApp has now added a new feature allowing you to delete sent messages for all recipients
WhatsApp, has now been updated, with a much-requested feature, possibly THE most requested feature and one which anyone who has ever used the messenger platform will be glad to hear of; you can now delete messages after you've sent them, and not just for yourself, you can delete it for everyone in the conversation.
Potentially this allows you to delete a message before anyone else
sees it. Great news for anyone who's ever sent a message and then
immediately regretted it, which is probably most of us.
A hold press on a message brings up "delete" or "cancel" just like before, but with the new option "delete for everyone" as well. "Delete" just removes it from your end, but "delete for everyone" removes it for all participants in a conversation.
There are, however, a few caveats to this feature. As soon as you
send a message, you basically have seven minutes in which to delete it
for everyone, otherwise you loose the opportunity forever.
Additionally, the feature doesn't take into account whether others have seen the message or not, so if you see two blue ticks it's already too late. Otherwise, you can probably delete the message and safely know it wasn't seen.
If you do delete a message for everyone it will show "You deleted this message" in your window and "This message was deleted" for others, so they can see you deleted something even if they can't see what it was.
There's also no built-in mechanism to notify you if deleting for everyone failed for any reason.
The new update and features are rolling out right now, but as usual for such things, it might not land everywhere at the same time.
A hold press on a message brings up "delete" or "cancel" just like before, but with the new option "delete for everyone" as well. "Delete" just removes it from your end, but "delete for everyone" removes it for all participants in a conversation.
Additionally, the feature doesn't take into account whether others have seen the message or not, so if you see two blue ticks it's already too late. Otherwise, you can probably delete the message and safely know it wasn't seen.
If you do delete a message for everyone it will show "You deleted this message" in your window and "This message was deleted" for others, so they can see you deleted something even if they can't see what it was.
There's also no built-in mechanism to notify you if deleting for everyone failed for any reason.
The new update and features are rolling out right now, but as usual for such things, it might not land everywhere at the same time.
