What you need to know
- Whatsapp rolls out “Accidental Delete” for users to undo the Delete for Me option when removing messages.
- This feature will give users 5 seconds to undo a mistakenly deleted message before it remains gone from their view permanently.
- Deleting messages in Whatsapp first launched in 2017 with a seven-minute timer that was previously increased to 60 hours.
Our thumbs fly when we’re texting, so Whatsapp has released a new feature for moments when we’re going just a little too quickly.
Head of Whatsapp Will Cathcart tweeted out the rollout of the new “Accidental Delete” feature for the popular messaging app (via Android Police). This new feature will undo the “Delete for Me” option on Whatsapp that removes a message from your personal view.
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. pic.twitter.com/Ec0RCJKWioDecember 19, 2022
Cathcart explains that this feature should come in handy for times when you meant to delete a message for another person or several in a group but accidentally took it away from your view only.
In the app, selecting a message to delete will display the option to Delete for Me or Delete for everyone. If you accidentally select Delete for Me, a popup will spring up from the typing space, allowing you to restore the message and then properly delete it. Android Police has found that this option will linger for 5 seconds, so you’ll need to act quickly if you’re looking to undo a mistake.
Whatsapp started allowing users to delete messages from just their view or everyone’s app back in 2017. When the feature first rolled out, users were faced with a seven-minute timer for deleting messages which was then increased to 60 hours as of earlier this year. Perhaps this new Accidental Delete feature could receive the same treatment if enough people are dissatisfied with the current short timeframe.
It was also back in August of 2022 that Whatsapp started testing the ability for group admins to delete messages for everyone in a group chat before its rollout later that same month.
While removing messages is a feature Whatsapp is playing catch up on, the platform is continuing to refine its user experience. The Meta-owned message app is apparently in the beta testing phase for a view-once option for messages. Although, this feature would arrive in the hands of users over a year late as this function already exists for photos and videos.
