Facebook will let you unsend messages within 10 minutes of sending them

Right around the time of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, it was discovered that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives had the option of deleting their messages from the recipients' inboxes. While the social media company clarified that this was only to protect the privacy of its executives, it also promised that the feature will be released in time for all users. And the company seems to be making good on that promise.

Facebook will reportedly allow users to delete messages sent via Messenger within 10 minutes of sending them. As of now, while users can delete a message they have sent at their end, it remains in the receivers' Messenger inbox and Facebook's servers. The unsend feature has been listed as coming soon on the release notes for the upcoming version 191.0 of Messenger for iOS, The Verge spotted.

The release note says: Remove a message from a chat thread after it's been sent. If you accidentally send the wrong photo, incorrect information or message the wrong thread, you can easily correct it by removing the message within 10 minutes of sending it.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has had the delete for everyone feature for quite some time now. This too allows a message to be deleted from a chat thread, but the time restraint is one hour, a lot more than the 10 minutes Facebook is offering on Messenger. Maybe little, but it's better than having a wrong message sit permanently in a chat thread.

We have been hearing about Facebook's unsend feature since April, and it appeared in testing in October. However, it is unclear whether all platforms will get the functionality right away. The release note declaring the feature is for iOS, and there is no word on whether or when it will come to Android smartphones and desktops.

Edited by Vivek Punj