Shame if your message is 1 hour, 18 minutes and 17 seconds old
WhatsApp first introduced in 2017 the ability for you to delete your messages for everyone in group chats. Initially, there was a strict time limit of eight minutes, but the app reduced that cut-off time to a more precise 1.13777778 hours. Last year there were indications that the app would increase this limit for another three months. The change was never introduced, however, possibly because the developers realized that the deadline might be too long. We now know that plans are still in place to extend that deadline, but not by weeks.
WABetaInfo reports that WhatsApp has extended the time limit for deleting sent messages to 2 days and 12 hours for some users on the latest v2.22.15.8 beta release. This is less arbitrary than the current cut-offs of 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds – admittedly less arbitrary in DevSpeak when you consider that it equals 4,096 seconds and that the number can be stored on 12 bits. Is.
Leading competing app Telegram lets its users delete sent messages within 48 hours of a push, so WhatsApp gains 12 hours here.
There is no indicator in WhatsApp beta to inform you about the increased limit. You just have to try it yourself by sending a message to a group and then try deleting it after a few days
This isn’t the only improvement WhatsApp is working on to delete messages: a feature to allow group admins to delete chats from anyone in the group for other members is also under development.
The Meta-owned messaging app is known for taking its sweet time passing on new features to the later development stages, but we think the extra time will eventually make it to the stable channel release.
