A socially active lad chatting with his friends, family and bae at the same time, accidentally sends the wrong message to the wrong person on WhatsApp and is embarrassed about it like anything.

What is written above is obviously not new to you, is it? You must have encountered such a situation if you are a socially active WhatsApp user and chat usually with a lot of people and/or are a member of multiple WhatsApp groups which change DPs on various occasions, festivals etc. It is a simple thing that you send the wrong message to the wrong group/person. And you want to take it back.

You want to delete it, and yes you delete it. But you were unable to do so for the receiver’s inbox. But now, you can do that too!

You got it right. WhatsApp has started rolling out its one of the latest and the most wanted features – ‘Unsend a message’.

What it actually is? ‘Unsend on WhatsApp’?

Unsend on WhatsApp is a feature which allows a user to delete a sent message (by him only) from the receiver’s phone too. It works for both – personal and group messages.

How does it work?

• Your WhatsApp version and device software version must be one of the latest/picked ones for now
• Later, only updated WhatsApp version will do when WhatsApp rolls it out for all users and all devices
• While writing this article, the feature was tested on an iPhone 6, and a Moto e4 Plus to work positively (where all versions of software of the corresponding devices were updated); Whereas it didn’t work on many. Being a beta tester or having Early access is not the key
• You can do this for a message sent only within last 7 minutes
• Even being a group admin, you can’t do so for the messages sent by other users
• The sender (who deleted the message) gets options if he wants to delete only for himself or for everyone while deleting
• There is no option to delete for a few people and keep for a few in a group
• After deleting, the sender sees a display – You deleted this message; WhereAs the receiver(s) see(s) a display – This message was deleted
• You can delete the sent multimedia too, even if it was downloaded
• This is a slow rollout, so some might have received it and some not
• Both – the sender and the receiver will need the latest WhatsApp for this feature to work. Recipients should also have the latest version of WhatsApp. 
• This feature is officially called ‘Delete For Everyone’ or ‘recall message’.
• As of now, it is not yet available for WhatsApp Web
• Once you delete the message for everyone, don’t worry as the receiver won’t see it even in the notification tray, pop up or anywhere
• To save yourself, you need to be quick and delete it before the receiver sees it, and one catch is there that the receiver will receive a notification that you had sent something which is now deleted

Can we have some screenshots?

Yes, Of course!

Is this feature available for the first time in the market?

No. If you are an Instagram user, you have enjoyed it well. And there is no any 7-minute restriction for it too.

How long should one wait to get this feature available on his/her phone?

Two weeks seems to be the upper limit. You might get it way before that.

What’s the idea behind the 7-minute thing?

It’s a simple understanding that a message/photo/video gets usually a response within seconds or a few minutes after the sender has sent it. If we don’t talk about the math, WhatsApp might have felt that 7 minutes is a good time that a sender realises his/her mistake and wants to take it back. That’s why it is so.

Note: WhatsApp also warned that the feature is not a guaranteed way to make sure your recipient does not see the erroneous/offending message. They said recipients may see your message before it’s deleted or if the deletion was not successful.

With this 7-minute restriction, WhatsApp has made clear that they allow to make up only your ‘mistakes’ and not ‘crimes’. LOL.

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