WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app of the decade and is rightly so since it is used by more than a billion of users around the globe. Improving on itself, WhatsApp has continuously released updates, which add support for various features, like the blue ticks or the starred messages or the search in chat. One of the features, which lacks in many social messaging apps, is the ability to delete messages once you send them, and WhatsApp just made it possible to do so!
WhatsApp had been testing a feature since the most of 2017, which enabled the platform’s users to recall and delete their messages after sending them. There is a catch though, you are only able to revoke or delete the message if you recall it just within the first seven minutes of sending it. Nobody from conversations or group chats would be able to see it if you take action promptly unless they have already seen it.
Nevertheless, for this feature to work, BOTH the sender and the recipient need to be on the latest WhatsApp for this feature to be fail-safe. Moreover, WhatsApp has not yet released this feature globally but will be doing so gradually over this week.
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If you want to utilize this feature, you will have to select a new option, which comes after you select delete, and another option appears in the form of “delete for everyone” apart from just the single option of deleting the message from just the smartphone itself.
Bear in mind, that this feature is not yet available to all, so there is huge possibility that whoever you might want to try this on would still be able to see your message even if you choose the delete for everyone option.
Moreover, WhatsApp itself has warned, “recipients may see your message before it’s deleted or if the deletion was not successful,” therefore there is no assurance that they might have just screenshotted the message or read them from the notifications anyway before you delete them. It is also highly likely that they turn off their Wi-Fi and so the messages are not deleted from their side, unless they connect to Wi-Fi again, and could see the messages from the notifications.
Even with these uncertainties, it is still a good feature to be implemented, since it can save you from embarrassing moments after you send a message you regret to your crush or just casually sent a message to someone you did not intend to, or the usual gibberish we send when we are in a hangover. But just bear in mind, that there is no guarantee that it will always save the day, and WhatsApp won’t be notifying you if the other recipient has actually read the message in some way or another!
