We’ve all done it: sent a text message and then regretted it immediately. Whether it was a text to your parent with a spelling error that they’d never forgive you for, a message with the wrong word in it (“I don’t want to come to the party!” instead of “I want to come to the party!”), or a sudden realization that you sent your message to the wrong person — it can be embarrassing at best and disastrous at worst.
While other messaging applications, including Signal, WhatsApp, and Viber, all feature some variation of “delete for everyone,” there was nothing you could do about it on iMessage until now, other than reply with an “I didn’t mean that!” message.
Apple adds a feature to its iMessage chat app in iOS 16 that allows you to amend or unsend a message if you do so within 15 minutes of sending it and the recipient is also on iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or macOS Ventura.
Furthermore, if the other person is using a previous version, it fails in an inelegant manner (so don’t rely on this functionality during the public beta). There may also be some other difficulties to be aware of when utilizing this feature.
If you still want to give this feature a try on the iOS 16 beta, this is how you can use them –
To edit the message
Step 1. Long press the message you want to edit.
Step 2. From the drop-down menu that appears, tap on the edit option.
Step 3. To send the correction, edit your message and press the checkmark to the right of the message. (Alternatively, if you’ve changed your mind about modifying the text, hit the “x” to the left of the message.)
To unsend the message
Step 1. Long press the message that you want to unsend.
Step 2. From the drop-down menu that appears, tap on the undo send option.
Step 3. The message will vanish instantly.
If you long-press on your message after 15 minutes, the Undo Send and Edit choices will be removed from the menu.
