WhatsApp users can now undo 'delete for me' when they accidentally click the option in group chats

This has been noted to be embarrassing to most users as removing unwanted messages should be controlled by the poster but the former option gave no such choices when the user clicked on the ‘delete for me’ option thus still leaving the message in everyone's view.

The new feature allows a five-second window to give users the opportunity to undo the action of deleting messages for their own (delete for me) in an individual or group chat and use the ‘delete for everyone’ option instead.

Users sometimes land in a situation when they accidentally tap the “Delete for Me” button instead of “Delete for Everyone” to delete a wrongly sent message.

When this mistake is made, users may think they have successfully deleted a message for both parties but while the user may not see the message anymore, the receiver(s) on the other end, will still have access to the message and that may sometimes be embarrassing to the user.

The new feature, therefore, aims to help millions of WhatsApp users overcome this situation by providing the small window to enable them to reverse their original actions.

Checks revealed this feature is already active on android phones for the ‘delete for me’ option but no undo feature for the ‘delete for everyone’ option.

The ‘delete for everyone’ option was first introduced in 2017 to allow users to recall a message mistakenly sent to an individual chat or to all users in a group chat.

The feature had a time limit of just seven minutes when it was initially introduced but it was later increased to one hour and eight minutes.

The platform moderated the feature in August 2022 by extending the time limit thereby allowing users to delete a message which has been sent for up to two days and 12 hours (60 hours in total).