WhatsApp had already rolled out the feature to limited users last week. Now, the company has officially rolled out of the ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature to all users. WhatsApp users will now be able to delete a message from a conversation for everyone. The feature will work for all types of messaging including GIFs, images, texts, voice messages, location, status updates, and contacts. However, a message can only be deleted within 7 minutes of sending it. The Facebook-owned messenger also confirms that messages that have been successfully deleted for everyone will be replaced with “This message was deleted” in the recipients’ chats and “You deleted this message” in your chat. So, from now on if you see “This message was deleted” in a chat, it means that the sender has deleted the message for everyone.
How does WhatsApp Delete for Everyone work?
The Delete for Everyone feature will work only with the latest updated version of WhatsApp. Also, both the sender and the receiver need to have the latest WhatsApp version in order to use the feature. The feature will automatically appear when you update your app. To use this feature, users will have to go to the chat containing the message they want to delete. After that, tapping on a message and holding the message, click on the trash icon just like earlier to delete a message. Now, you will see three options there- Delete for me, Cancel and Delete for everyone. Tap and select “Delete for Everyone” to delete the message for everyone. Tap more messages to delete multiple messages at once. The Delete for me feature is the regular delete option which WhatsApp has renamed. The feature just like before, allows users to delete the message they have sent or received from the device. This has no effect on the recipient’s chats. WhatsApp has confirmed that the feature will be applicable only if the user quickly deletes it. The company clarifies that users can only delete messages for everyone for up to seven minutes after sending. So, once seven minutes have passed, users cannot delete message for everyone.
