It used to be the case that sending a WhatsApp message was final – no take-backs.
But in a bid to keep up with rival services, WhatsApp began offering an “unsend” feature that lets you delete a message for everyone.
The feature has been available since October 2017, but you’re only allowed to use it within seven minutes of sending a message.
The good news is that the length of this grace period is about to be bumped to over an hour.
There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to unsend a message: maybe you’ve drunk-texted an ex, or mistakenly called your boss something unpleasant in the work chat.
Very soon, you’ll be given a generous 4,096 seconds to recall the text.
That works out at exactly 68 minutes and 16 seconds, which is nearly 10 times longer than the current recall time.
There’s been no official announcement, but tech site WABetaInfo dug into the latest beta app update for WhatsApp and uncovered the change.
The feature will still work in exactly the same way, however.
To bin a message, simply hold the message then choose Delete from the menu. Then tap ‘Delete for everyone’.
If you delete a message, it will still appear in your chat, but the text will be replaced with ‘This message was deleted’.