We’ve all sent messages we regret, which is why many messaging platforms now give us the option to recall a text. Facebook Messenger is finally following suit, but it won’t give you much time to fix a potential disaster.
We’ve been anticipating Messenger’s “unsend” option since April, when Facebook admitted it had been secretly deleting messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We didn’t know we would all get the same functionality at the time, but then it was uncovered in testing in October.
Now Facebook has confirmed unsend is on the way.
Facebook Messenger will let you delete sent messages
Facebook confirms in the release notes for Messenger’s 191.0 update on iOS that the ability to delete sent messages is “coming soon.”
“If you accidentally send the wrong photo, incorrect information or message the wrong thread, you can easily correct it by removing the message,” the notes read. Facebook confirms you’ll have 10 minutes to take action before the delete option disappears.
You can delete sent and received items in Facebook Messenger today, but it only removes them from your device. As soon as a message is sent, there’s nothing you can do to recall it from the recipient’s chat thread.
It’s great that a proper unsend option is on the way, then, but the 10-minute window Facebook will give us is significantly less than the one hour it offers in WhatsApp.