WhatsApp is also bringing a longer time limit to allow users to delete messages “for all.”
Meta-owned instant messaging app WhatsApp is working on a feature that will give users the ability to hide their online status from everyone. This will come as an extension of the already-existing feature where users can hide their “Last Seen” status from their contacts.
The feature, spotted in a report from WABetaInfo, has been found in an iOS beta version of WhatsApp, and is set to come to end users in a future update. According to the report, the feature is still under development and has not even been launched for beta testers since it is not ready. Currently, users can choose to display their “Last Seen” information to contacts, some people, or no one. For a future version of the app, WhatsApp will let users follow a similar approach to their online status, the WABetaInfo report hints.
The new privacy-focused feature is being developed at the same time there are reports of WhatsApp bringing the aility to edit messages after they are sent. It has been quite a while since the app started letting users delete messages, but it never brought the ability to edit them – which is finally changing in a future update.
Further, the company is also rumoured to be working on allowing users to delete messages that are up to two days and 12 hours old, extending from the current limit of just over one hour. The ability to edit and delete messages is also coming to iMessages on iPhones with iOS 16.
Although it drove some controversy, being able to edit and delete a message can be very handy when you misspell a word or send the wrong information to a person in a chat.
WhatsApp Is Increasing The Time Limit To Delete Messages For Everyone To Give You More Time To Undo Mistakes
WhatsApp is bringing another delete message feature that will allow group admins to delete chats for anyone in the group for other members.
WhatsApp has the ability to delete messages after you have sent them. However, the ability only exists for messages that are an hour or so old. This is an increased limit from the initial 8 minutes timeline that WhatsApp gave users to be able to delete their messages. Now, however, the company is further extending the limit to allow users to delete messages that are more than two days old.
According to a report in WABetaInfo, WhatsApp has increased the time limit to delete messages to up to 2 days and 12 hours for some users on the latest beta version 2.22.15.8 of the app. This is much more than the current time limit of 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds that users get to delete messages for everyone. WhatsApp competitor Telegram allows users to delete messages after 48 hours of sending, so the Meta-owned instant messaging app is trying to gain a 12 hour advantage on Telegram.
According to the report, there is no notification in the beta version that alerts users about the increased time limit to delete messages. You will just need to try it for yourself by sending a message to a group and then attempt to delete it after a couple of days.
WhatsApp is bringing another delete message feature that will allow group admins to delete chats for anyone in the group for other members. WhatsApp recently announced that it has banned over 19 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of May in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021. The platform had banned over 16.6 lakh bad accounts in India in April.