Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has announced that users can now edit their sent messages through a new ‘Edit’ feature.
With the feature rolling out globally in the coming weeks, senders will be able to modify their messages within 15 minutes of hitting send. The function can be accessed by long-pressing the message and choosing “edit” in the drop-down menu. The modified message will carry the label “edited”, without showing edit history.
Previously, the only way to correct a message sent in haste or containing an error was to delete it and send a fresh one, with recipients alerted to the fact by the removed post being replaced with the phrase: “This message was deleted.”
“From correcting a simple misspelling to adding extra context to a message, we’re excited to bring you more control over your chats. All you need to do is long-press on a sent message and choose ‘Edit’ from the menu for up to 15 minutes after,” said WhatsApp.
Competing apps such as Telegram and Signal already allow users to edit messages, while Twitter rolled out the ability to edit tweets to select users last year. Twitter offers an editing feature to subscribers to its Twitter Blue service, giving them a 30-minute window to edit a tweet after it has been sent.
Meta’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, flagged the WhatsApp change on his Facebook page, showing a message that had been changed from “Beast of luck!” to “Best of luck!”
Facebook, also owned by Meta, started to roll out the ability to edit posts and comments about a decade ago. Its fellow Meta social media platform Instagram allows users to edit posts but not comments.