WhatsApp officially launches message retract feature to delete sent messages

 
WhatsApp has finally added the ability to delete those embarrassing messages you sent by mistake before your contact has had a chance to read them or even if read.
Earlier this week, WhatsApp updated its FAQ page with instructions on how people can use its new message retract feature that lets users purge the embarrassing messages they sent before their intended recipient has had a chance to read them. But unfortunately, most users still didn’t have access to the new functionality.
This changes as at 31st of Oct. The Facebook subsidiary has announced in a new blog post that it has begun rolling out the unsend feature to all of its users worldwide. “This feature is rolling out for users around the world on the latest versions of iPhone, Android, Windows Phone as well as desktop,” the post read.
The new feature is called ‘Delete for everyone’ and is available to use for both messages sent to  group and individual chats. All purged texts will be replaced with a ‘This message was deleted’ notice.

SEE ALSO: List of Smart Phones that Support WhatsApp

Users can follow these steps to check whether ‘Delete for everyone’ has landed on their phone:

• Go to WhatsApp and open any chat thread with a message you wish to recall.
• Tap and hold on the message in question. The extended options should show up at the top of your screen. Please note that you can optionally select more than one messages to delete multiple texts at the same time.
• Once you’ve settled on the messages you want gone, tap the Delete (thrash bin icon) and select the ‘Delete for everyone’ option.

Assuming everything goes smoothly, deleted messages will disappear from both the chat threads as well as the notification center.

Here is what you can expect:

To access ‘Delete for everyone,’ make sure you’ve updated to the latest version on WhatsApp. Another thing to keep in mind is that using the feature won’t work unless “[b]oth you and the message recipient” are running the app’s latest iteration.
To give you some context, though ‘Delete for everyone’ is only making its way to the official release now, WhatsApp has been testing the feature since at least June.
To avoid sending a message you will regret (thinking you could unsend it whenever you want), it might be worth catching a peek at all the particularities of using ‘Delete for everyone.’

Source: WhatsApp wia Thenextweb