WhatsApp adds new ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature; Here’s how to use

WhatsApp 'Delete for Everyone' is easy to use. Just keep in mind you can recall messages within seven minutes, and no longer than that.

WhatsApp has officially rolled out ‘Delete for everyone’ feature globally for Android, iOS, and Windows users. It lets people delete sent messages, including media within seven minutes of sending them. For ‘Delete for everyone’ to work, both sender and recipient must be using the latest version of WhatsApp app. The feature is quite useful when it comes to recalling messages that contain a mistake, have been accidentally sent, or were meant for someone else. It works for individual as well as group chats.

WhatsApp ‘Delete for Everyone’ is easy to use. Just keep in mind you can recall messages within seven minutes, and no longer than that. Both recipient and sender will get a notification when messages get successfully deleted. However, people won’t be notified if deleting message for everyone was unsuccessful. In this case, the receiver might see or read your message.

So how can one delete messages for everyone in the group?  To get started, just tap and hold the message that you want to delete, in chat window. Next, choose Delete from the menu. You can select multiple messages to delete for everyone as well. Finally tap ‘Delete for Everyone’ and you’re done. Once message is deleted for everyone, you will get a message that reads, “You deleted this message.” The recipient, on the other hand, will get a notification saying, “This message was deleted.”

“Messages you successfully delete for everyone will be replaced with “This message was deleted” in your recipients’ chats (*). Similarly, if you see “This message was deleted” in a chat, it means that the sender deleted their message for everyone,” read WhatsApp blog post.

What is 'Delete for Everyone'?

Ever come across a situation where you've sent the wrong message to the wrong person? This is where this new feature will help. WhatsApp has become the go-to application for all communication, be it personal or professional. With such blurred lines in between it's easy to mix up names and occasionally send an inappropriate text to someone who was not suppose to receive it.

Using this feature the sender can tap of the erroneous message and select the 'delete for everyone' feature. This will delete the text on the receiver's device. However, there are terms and conditions attached to this. The message can only be deleted within seven minutes after being sent.

Quoted WhatsApp texts cannot be deleted even within seven minutes. Another major condition will be that the receiver's WhatsApp application should be up to date. The feature will not function with an older version on either end. WhatsApp on Symbian operating system will also not be able to get this new update. This new feature will reach most devices gradually. However, iOS users might start receiving it earlier than others.

WhatsApp has been aggressively introducing new features within their application and is also stepping in the social media realm by introducing features like stories. The consistent rise in a smartphone's computational power is enabling applications like WhatsApp to delve into other genres of communication.

Though many popular applications offer services like conference video and voice calls much before WhatsApp, the sheer size of the user-base makes the feature an instant hit. The application has 1 billion daily active users and around 1.3 billion monthly active users.

The Live Location feature was also offered by various applications like Messenger, Google Maps, Telegram etc. but with WhatsApp adopting it, the feature might finally get a broader audience.

WhatsApp has easily become the most widely-used app on Google's Play Store as well as iOS' App Store. The application boasts over a billion downloads on Play Store alone.The company also released a few statistics claiming around 1 billion active users daily and over 1.3 billion monthly active users.