WhatsApp now allows you to delete a message for up to two days and 12 hours (60 hours in total), so you can remove an accidentally sent chat even after hours. Previously, this limit was 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds — yep, there were seconds involved.
The company’s tweet about this feature just mentioned “little over two days” but didn’t specify the 12-hour part.
WhatsApp first introduced the unsend feature back in 2017 with a time limit of just seven minutes but later increased it to one hour and eight minutes. Last year, WABetaInfo noted that the company might consider introducing a seven-day limit, but with this new update, it has chosen a rather odd time frame of two and a half days.
In comparison, rival chat app Telegram has no limit on deleting a message, so you can remove a chat years after sending it. Apple is moving in the other direction; after introducing the unsend feature for iOS 16 at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, the company reduced the limit from 15 minutes to two minutes in the fourth version of the iOS 16 developer beta last month.
WhatsApp is also introducing new privacy features to its app including blocking screenshots for “view-once messages” and the ability to leave a group silently.