The Facebook-owned instant messaging giant, WhatsApp has been making quick iterations to its application this year. One of the most notable features which were introduced on the platform this year was the delete for everyone option, which allowed senders to delete their sent messages similarly to the unsend option in Instagram. However, there was a time limit set upon for deletion which was 7 minutes initially. In the following update, the time limit for the same was increased to one hour, eight minutes and sixteen seconds. Now WhatsApp has seemingly brought a new update which further restricts deletion from the sender’s side.
After having a tussle with WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, Facebook seems to be integrating the platform fully into the Facebook ecosystem which consists of other applications like Facebook and Instagram. However, this new update about the “recipient limit” has been brought to fruition to limit the deletion of messages by senders who were possibly misusing the functionality.
New Recipient Limit
As per a report by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp has updated the “Recipient Limit” for deletion of a message from the recipient’s chat. Meaning that now, the recipient of the message must get the revoke request within 13 hours, eight minutes, and 16 seconds for the message deletion to go through. In case the recipient does not get the revoke request whatever the reason may be, then the message would not be deleted.
Previous One Hour Limit to Stay
Even with this new update, users should note that the previous limit of one hour, eight minutes and sixteen seconds will remain as it is and that senders will be able to delete the messages like before within this time frame. However, in case the revoke request fails to go through, during that time the new protocol will be applicable for the deletion of messages by the sender for everyone.
The people at WABetaInfo have said that this update will help tackle the issue of senders deleting messages from long back. It also remains unclear now, whether the update has been pushed to the entire user base or it is being rolled out in chunks. This new update is a server-side one so people will not have to check for the update separately.
