Embarassing texts, while almost a rite of passage for every mobile-phone-bearing millennial, are rarely a good thing for anyone involved. Far too often you text before you think, realising you’ve declared your undying love for an ex you’d actually rather swallow your own teeth than get back together with, or you’ve got extra sassy with your housemates in the group message about their unacceptable idea of living standards.Â
Anyone who can relate to the above will be absolutely overjoyed with the miracle that is this: Whatsapp has created an ‘unsend’ button which allows users of the instant messaging app to delete messages they’ve already sent. And it’s something we’d like to think is designed entirely to minimise the damage of your reckless texting.
Of course, as with most things in life, there’s a catch. To gain access to the feature, both the person who sent the message and the message’s recipient have to have the most updated version of Whatsapp on their iOS, Android or Windows phone.
Oh, and you can only delete messages sent within the past seven minutes…
According to Whatsapp’s FAQ page on the feature, it’s possible to delete messages either for everyone, or just for yourself. If you want to delete messages for everyone (either in an individual or a group chat), here’s how you do it:
1. Open WhatsApp and go to the chat containing the message you wish to delete.
2. Tap and hold the message > choose Delete from the menu. Optionally, select more messages to delete multiple messages at once.
3. Tap Delete > Delete for Everyone.
If you opt to delete the message, in its place recipients will see: “This message was deleted” in their chat screen.
There is, of course, the chance that recipients may have read your message prior to you deleting it, which is just hard luck. The folks behind Whatsapp might be technological geniuses, but they can’t physically turn back time. Sadly.
H/T Cosmo UK