WhatsApp feature that lets users delete messages in a thread

In October 2017 WhatsApp allowed users to delete messages for everyone, leading to a collective sigh of relief. Now the messenger service is beta testing a new variant that would similarly delete messages in an entire thread for all those who received it, saving us from more embarrassing moments. 

The new beta was spotted by WABetaInfo which indicates that users would have the ability to delete messages for everyone included in a thread till a specific time. It does not mention the time limit, though for single messages WhatsApp had fixed a ceiling of an hour and eight minutes before which users need to retrieve it. 

Reports of the Facebook-owned messaging service expanding its message deletion  capabilities comes a day after the company seems to have received some respite on its encryption rules from the federal Indian government. In a new set of rules, the government had released a list of FAQs on applicability, due diligence and penalties on social media platforms with more than 50 lakh users. 

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Information remains sketchy about how long the delete for everyone feature would extend its time limit or when the feature would roll out across the platform. What is clear though is that WhatsApp has responded to user requests for such a feature, especially from business users who tend to have more group chats. 

A closer look at the data provided by WABetaInfo indicates that they managed to get a prompt for deletion on a message thread dated two months ago. Does it mean the messenger app could do away with the time limit and allow users to remove chats at any point from their chat history? We aren't sure on this one, but can guess that as users most of us would love such a system. 

Another aspect on which there is little clarity at this point in time is on whether the new feature would function on messages that were sent before it actually rolls out or work only with those that were shared post its implementation. 

WhatsApp's recent enhancements

In recent times, WhatsApp has brought forth several innovations as part of efforts to retain its status as a market leader in messenger apps, given that a slew of similar applications such as Telegram and WeChat are steadily gaining ground. 

A recent addition, coming close on the heels of the parent company's rebranding exercise as Meta, allows users to rate messages from businesses. This provides a crucial piece of feedback to enterprises using WhatsApp as a platform to communicate with customers and groups. The new feature has been rolled out in beta version on both the Android and iOS versions. 

Another long-pending demand from users for migrating chat messages between devices also got fulfilled recently, albeit for a limited audience. WhatsApp made it possible to migrate chat history from iOS to Android run devices. The feature will be available for users defined by the operating system and the device being used. So, one has to be running Android 12 and using an eligible Samsung handset or Pixel device to be able to attempt this migration. 

More recently, WhatsApp Pay started rolling out a cash-back feature to lure users into the payment system that was launched last year in India, but with lacklustre results. The new feature is also available to select users as WhatsApp Pay has not left any means for new ones to enroll into the scheme. 

Exactly a year ago, WhatsApp had rolled out its disappearing message with an idea of side-stepping the privacy issue. In case you have not turned on this feature yet, do go through our step-by-step process here in order to ensure that old messages on your chat history get deleted automatically. 

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