WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature dubbed “Accidental Delete” which gives users a five-second window to allow them to reverse the action of deleting messages for their own yet they initially wanted to delete them for everyone.
Many can be a testimonial for this — they accidentally choose ‘Delete for Me’ instead of ‘Delete for Everyone’.
WhatsApp began testing the feature in August and now it is official to all users globally. This was confirmed by Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp at Meta in a tweet he said, “We’ve added the option to undo ‘Delete for me’ for those times when you mean to delete for everyone but accidentally deleted for just yourself.”
After selecting “Delete for me” the feature will automatically appear as an “Undo” button on a floating bar at the bottom of the app which the user will then click to restore the deleted message. Next, it’s up to you to either delete for everyone this time or leave the message.
The “Delete for everyone” option which was introduced by the instant messaging app in October 2017 debuted with a seven-minute window — however, the window was extended to 60 hours in August this year.
How to delete messages on WhatsApp
Ensure to have an updated app;
- While in the app, go to the chat containing the message(s) you want to get deleted.
- Tap and hold the message you want to delete. You can choose to delete multiple messages at once or one at a go.
- Now, tap on Delete, and from the pop-up select Delete for me or Delete for everyone. Messages will be successful and will be replaced with a note reading: “This message was deleted“.
- Hooray, it is done.
Deleting your message doesn’t guarantee that it wasn’t read. The feature is rendered ineffective if your message is read, quoted or the media is downloaded.
