WhatsApp now lets you delete sent messages

WHATSAPP is now rolling out a new delete feature on WhatsApp for Android, iOS, and, surprisingly, Windows Phone. It allows users to delete messages sent to individual contacts or group threads. This is sure to be a handy and even potentially lifesaving feature for many, saving them from embarrassment, awkwardness, and shame.

There’s a slight caveat, though. Should a sender delete an already sent message, the recipient will see a “This message was deleted” notice so they’ll know the user had second thoughts about the message, hid something, or something along those lines. But that’s a small price to pay for such a crucial feature popular messaging apps often lack, including Facebook’s own Messenger platform.

Though now officially announced, the delete feature doesn’t seem to be available for all WhatsApp users just yet. But once it rolls out, users can delete messages by tapping and holding on a speech bubble and hitting the trash can icon from a drop-down menu that appears. The message will disappear both from the sender and receiver’s ends.

Keep in mind, however, that messages can only be deleted within seven minutes after sending them, and both users must have the latest version of the app installed. Otherwise, WhatsApp warns that a receiver might still end up seeing the message even though it’s been deleted. There’s currently no notification informing the user if a message was successfully deleted on the receiver’s end, so don’t count on the feature as a failsafe for drunk texts at midnight.

Since Facebook owns WhatsApp, could this feature be rolled out for Facebook and Messenger users too? Currently, deleting a message on those apps only removes it from the user’s end, not the receiver’s, which is essentially pointless.

Hopefully, Facebook changes its mind about this since Messenger is probably one of the most used messaging platforms in the world, and even the most careful user has had embarrassing slipups in the past. Instead of being able to unsend those wrong messages, they’re etched forever in the permanent chambers of the Internet.