WhatsApp’s new ‘Accidental Delete’ feature will save you from embarrassment

Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp keeps rolling out a slew of new features to make the app more efficient and effective. It has now introduced an “Accidental Delete” feature that will help its users avoid embarrassing situations.

The newly introduced feature will essentially give users a five-second window to undo their action if they accidentally happened to click on “delete for me” instead of “delete for everyone.”

Once a user clicks “delete for me” they can neither see nor delete the message on the chat, but the message remains visible to the recipient. The option to undo the deletion will now let the users delete the message for everyone.

Every time a user deletes a message, a pop-up would appear on their screen asking them if they want to “Undo” the action. The feature works for both individual and group chats, according to tech portal TechCrunch. However, you cannot retrieve the message if you have already deleted it for everyone.

Users will be able to use the feature by updating WhatsApp to the 22.18.0.70 beta available on TestFlight. There is no need to worry if the feature is not available for some users yet. It would appear on your screens when the next updates become available over the coming weeks, according to a report by WhatsApp features tracker WABetaInfo.

The “Delete for Everyone” option was rolled out in 2017. Initially, users were only given a seven-minute window to delete messages. The time limit was eventually extended to 60 hours.

The latest update comes weeks after WhatsApp rolled out the “Message Yourself” feature allowing users to initiate a 1:1 chat with themselves and send notes, reminders and more.

It has also begun testing picture-in-picture support for video calls on iOS. The feature is already available for WhatsApp beta users, and a wider release is expected by next year.