Yous're on a timer here, and then let'southward cutting straight to the hunt: do you need to delete a WhatsApp message you've just sent? Y'all have Seven MINUTES. Open the bulletin, press and hold to select it, tap the rubbish bin icon at the top of the screen and choose 'Delete for everyone'.

At present exhale, and let's talk about it. Did that really work? Did anyone see it earlier y'all deleted it? Will they know you deleted a message?

WhatsApp no longer puts us through the desperation of having to awkwardly avoid people after we have accidentally sent a message to the wrong person - or even a message to the right person, but 1 that we take immediately regretted.

It'southward now possible to delete WhatsApp messages even after they accept been delivered but, equally we alluded to above, there is a time limit. Afterwards seven minutes have passed, it is non possible to remotely delete a WhatsApp message from someone else'southward phone.

Let'southward assume yous immediately regretted the sent message, and therefore got to it before they would have washed. The chances are yous probably deleted it earlier they saw it, but the only way to exist sure is by using the ticks arrangement that appears at the end of every message, so let's hope you clocked that earlier hitting the impale switch.

If there was a unmarried grayness tick before y'all hit 'Delete for everyone' then y'all can rest easy: it hadn't even been delivered to their phone. If there were two grey ticks so it was delivered, just not read. Two blue ticks? Fourth dimension to leave the land.

Unfortunately, WhatsApp has no MIB-style neuralyzer: if two blue ticks have appeared to show someone has already read your message, no amount of aimlessly trying to delete it from the conversation will scrub information technology from their retention (though information technology may destroy the evidence).

WhatsApp volition display a message within the chat thread confirming that a message was deleted, simply giving away no clues as to what it said. You have time to call back about this, so manner it out - and, if in doubt, a simple 'Oops! Incorrect person' should suffice.

Are in that location whatsoever situations where this might not have worked? Afraid so, but information technology is unlikely.

If someone had received your message while in an surface area of mobile or wireless connectivity, only then lost signal or turned off their phone (perhaps the battery ran out), WhatsApp would not have been able to reconnect to that phone to delete the message. It will also stop attempting to delete that message afterward 13 hours, viii minutes and 6 seconds (which is weirdly precise), so you've got to hope they will come dorsum within range or find a charger within that time period.

The other scenario might be if they had turned off read receipts without y'all knowing, leaving yous in the nighttime as to whether or non they had already read your message. This doesn't mean the message wasn't deleted, just that y'all don't know whether they had already read it.

Send them another message and you'll before long notice out - either read receipts are plainly switched off, or they are gunning for you lot.

Tin can you bypass the vii-infinitesimal rule?

@AndroidJefe has reportedly found a trick to extend the time menstruum in which y'all can delete a sent WhatsApp message, but warns that it works only if the message has non already been read.

  • Turn off Wi-Fi and mobile data
  • Become to Settings, Time and Date settings and whorl back the date to a fourth dimension earlier the message was sent
  • Open up WhatsApp, discover and select the message, tap the bin icon and choose 'Delete for Everyone'
  • Plough on Wi-Fi and mobile data and reset the fourth dimension and date to normal in social club for the bulletin to be deleted on WhatsApp'due south servers

More than relief may also be coming, as WhatsApp is reportedly testing an in-beta 'Disappearing Messages' feature, which volition allow y'all to predetermine how long messages should exist before they self-destruct, with options between 1 hour and one year.

Until then, remember: loose lips sink ships, and hot heads, erm, explode.

Read next:

  • How to send disappearing photos and video on WhatsApp
  • How to delete a sent Facebook message