Mistakenly pressed ‘Delete for Me’ on WhatsApp can be reversed

By Sifiso Sibandze

Have you accidentally pressed ‘Delete for Me’ instead of “Delete for Everyone”? If you are one of those, now you have all the reasons to smile as WhatsApp has come to your rescue.

WhatsApp, the internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), recently launched a new feature called “accidental delete”, which initiates a 5-second window for users to reverse their action of deleting the message for themselves and subsequently, delete it for everyone.

US-based tech portal TechCrunch report says the feature works in both individual and group chats. It would be available on both iPhones and Android devices.

It is also stated in the report that the feature was beta tested on some Android and iOS users in August, as per TechCrunch citing WABetaInfo. In 2017, the messaging platform introduced the “Delete for everyone” option so users could retract a message from all participants of a conversation in case they sent it by mistake.

Initially, the rollout was limited to just 7 minutes, it was increased to 60 hours in August this year. Meanwhile, after adding the disappearing messages feature in 2020, Instant messaging and voice-over-IP service, WhatsApp is now working on an extreme version of that option.

While initially limited to just one option (disappearing after 7 days), WhatsApp later expanded the disappearing messages feature to also allow for messages that disappear after 24 hours or 90 days, as per Mashable.

The new feature can be found in the latest WhatsApp beta for Android, version 2.22.25.20. Once a user sends such a message, the recipient cannot share or forward the message. Moreover, for photos and videos, the view-once functionality is enabled by choosing an image or video to send and then tapping on the encircled icon on the right side of the caption prompt.