Multimedia messaging platform WhatsApp has just issued a new update for its app. This new update improves its existing ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature where a user can delete a message in any given conversation. The company introduced this feature last year to increase the features on the platform. Initially, the time allowed to delete the messages was 7 minutes which was increased to 1 hour 8 minutes and 16 seconds. The new update adds an additional check in the app to make the feature more robust.
According to a report by WABetaInfo, this new update has added a check where if the recipient of the message does not receive the delete request for the message in 13 hours, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds then the message will not be deleted. To simplify, if you sent a message to your friend and then you want to delete the message in the conversation, the message will not be deleted even after you have tapped on ‘Delete for Everyone’ if your friend does not receive the delete request in the above mentioned time.
All the work, requests and everything happens in the background so that the user does not have to take care of it on the front end. WhatsApp added this feature to ensure that modded (modified) versions of the official version of WhatsApp don’t manipulate with time to delete days, weeks, months or sometimes even years old messages from the conversation.
This new update comes along the same time when WhatsApp developers are working on adding Sticker support to the app. There is no official timeline on when the expected to roll out, however, latest changes to the app indicate that the feature is expected to roll out in coming weeks.