Deleting on a mobile device
Although the messenger is the same for all smartphone owners, as it is installed from the same game store, there are still some differences in this application on different operating systems. Therefore, below are step-by-step instructions on how to delete a WhatsApp chat on iPhone and Android (personal conversation and group correspondence).
On iPhone
Before you clear your personal correspondence or general chat on WhatsApp, it is important to understand that messages can only be restored afterwards using backup copies.
So, how to delete an individual chat in WhatsApp on iPhone:
- Log in to messenger.
- Find a section with a list of dialogues. Select the one you want to remove from the application.
- Do not open the conversation itself, but drag the line belonging to it to the left until a small menu appears. In it, find the “More” section.
- Then click the “Delete chat” button. Confirm your intentions.
There is another way. There is a menu in the upper left corner of the display in the list of all dialogs. In it you should find the “Edit” tab. The social network will prompt the user to select the conversation that is planned to be deleted. You need to check the box, tap on “Delete” and confirm your actions by clicking on the same button a second time.
On Android
Instructions on how to delete a personal chat on WhatsApp on Android:
- Log in to messenger.
- Find a list of all conversations and select the one you want to get rid of.
- Press and hold an open dialog with your finger until a menu appears.
- Then select the trash can icon and tap on “Delete”.
It is important to know that messages deleted from your account will be seen by the person with whom you corresponded.
How to delete WhatsApp correspondence after a time limit
Those who really need to delete a message in a WhatsApp conversation for everyone, even after one hour has passed after sending, can exhale. Still, there is a way to do this. To bypass the standard rules and delete a message from both of them in Whatsapp:
- Set airplane mode on your smartphone;
- Disable automatic time detection in the time and date settings;
- Manually set the time and date of sending the message you want to erase;
- Go to the chat;
- Select and delete the unnecessary message in the same way as in the instructions above;
- Return all smartphone settings to their previous state.
It is still possible to carry out such removal. However, in the future, such a security hole in WhatsApp may be eliminated.
Deleting messages in a group chat both during the first hour and old messages occurs in the same way. However, there are a number of features. So, you cannot delete all correspondence unless you have administrator rights with a special access key.
It is also worth keeping in mind that completely deleting a message on WhatsApp will only work for text messages. Media files, even after being deleted from the correspondence, will remain in the WhatsApp folders on the phone.
How to delete conversations on WhatsApp
To delete a conversation from the application, you must leave it without deleting the chat itself. If new messages arrive, the line with it will appear again. It will be possible to re-enter the general chat only through the creator of the conversation.
Deleting a conversation is carried out in the following sequence:
- You need to go to the messenger.
- Find the tab with the selected group chat.
- Click on the button with three dots in the upper right corner.
- In the drop-down menu, click the “More” button.
- In the new tab, click on “Leave Group”.
- Confirm your action in the window that appears.
Ways to delete messages in messenger
In the hustle and bustle or due to inattention, it is possible that the user sent a message to the wrong person for whom it was intended. Having noticed the mistake, the sender is lost, not knowing what to do. When a user is actively in contact with other people, many messages accumulate in dialogues. Over time, conversations that lose relevance take up the device's memory. It is recommended to periodically delete correspondence.
Knowledge and ability to use standard means of deleting erroneous and irrelevant messages allows you to avoid leakage of important information to a third-party recipient. You can also clear your chat of irrelevant messages.
Functions | Explanation |
Delete for everyone | Used when a message was sent to the wrong contact or contains an error. Messages successfully deleted from both interlocutors are automatically replaced with the phrase: “This message has been deleted” |
Delete from me | Used to delete out-of-date sent and received messages from your mobile phone. Manipulation will not delete messages on the interlocutor’s phone. He will see these messages for himself. |
Clear chat | Deletes all chat messages on the user's phone only. |
Important! A delivered message can be deleted for everyone within 68 minutes from the moment it was sent. It is possible that the recipient read the erroneous message before deleting it. If the procedure does not work, the post will remain with the recipient.
After a limited time period, it will not be possible to remove the erroneous post from the recipient using standard means.
How to delete all correspondence at once
Messenger users sometimes have to clear all dialogs at once. Necessary actions in this case:
- Login to WhatsApp.
- Go to "Chats".
- There are three dots in the upper right corner. You should click on them.
- Find the “Settings” line.
- Select “Chats” from the menu that appears.
- In the new window, find “Chat history”.
- Select the “Delete all chats” option, then confirm your intentions.
After this, the list of dialogues will be empty, but all correspondence will be saved in the memory of the mobile device if a copy was made.
Deleting correspondence without the right to restore
There is a popular term on the Internet: “deleting correspondence without the right of recovery.” This means that if you clear user data or message history, you won't be able to retrieve it from device backups.
If data is saved to the physical memory of the device, we recommend periodically deleting the database . Cancel the backup so that the system does not send information to the project servers.
In more detail, deleting without the right to restore is a method of data cleaning in which a sequence of zeros and ones is written into the memory cell where the file or test fragments were saved, which prevent the system from subsequently extracting the necessary information.
No matter what you do, it is not possible to delete personal data from WhatsApp servers, and technical support will be of little help with this.
Chat recovery
You can restore a chat from an archive. Users often have a question about how to recover a deleted chat on WhatsApp? This can only be done when the chat was not deleted, but sent to the archive (instead of the trash can icon, a box with a down arrow is selected).
Answering the question of how to restore a chat on WhatsApp if you accidentally deleted it, then this is impossible to do unless it was archived.
The above steps are similar for smartphones running Android and iPhone. You can also delete messages and chat from your computer, as the process is completely similar to the steps described above. If in the process of performing the actions under consideration you encounter problems and unforeseen situations, then we are always ready to help you resolve them. To do this, contact us through the website, after which we will consider your problem and try to solve it remotely.
How to delete a message for everyone
If the user notices an error shortly after sending the message, he has about an hour to remove the message delivered to the interlocutor. Manipulations for all devices with the messenger installed are standard:
- Open the WhatsApp application and go to the dialog where you want to delete;
- Find the message you want to delete, tap and hold it. A menu of available actions will appear on the screen in the form of icons. Click on the trash can icon.
- A context menu will open. Select the "Delete from everyone" option. Instead of a deleted post, both interlocutors will see the line “This message has been deleted.”
Important! For the procedure to work correctly, those in contact must have the current version of WhatsApp installed on their smartphones.
Is it possible to delete all media files from a group at once?
WhatsApp has the ability to delete all media files from a group at once. This can be done in the settings of the messenger itself.
Instructions for Android :
- Launch WhatsApp.
- Go to the “Settings” section. To do this, click on the 3 dots at the top right of the screen.
- Go to the “Storage” section. Here you can find information about media files, links, and documents downloaded to Android. Select “Media files” and indicate the group from which they will be deleted.
- Confirm the deletion by clicking “Clear”.
iPhone Guide :
- Launch WhatsApp.
- Let's go to settings. To do this, click on the 3 dots at the top right of the screen.
- Go to the “Storage” section. Here you can find information about media files, links, and documents downloaded to your iPhone. Select “Media files” and indicate the group from which they will be deleted.
- Confirm the deletion by clicking “Clear”.
Instructions for PC:
- Launch WhatsApp on your computer.
- Go to the “Chat” section. Next, go to “Other options” and “Settings” at the top of the screen.
- Select “Data and Storage”, and then “Storage Management”.
- Find “Frequently sent, more than 5 MB” or indicate the group from which you want to delete media files.
- Click “Select All” to delete all objects.
- We confirm the action.
You can delete media files on WhatsApp from Android, iPhone and PC. Photos and videos are cleared in three ways: manually, through chat settings and in the messenger storage. You can entrust the removal of media files from a WhatsApp group to free programs – Clean for WhatsApp or Fone Eraser.
Is it possible to recover a deleted message in a group?
Community administrators have the right to restore deleted text and image messages in varying quantities. To do this, the software offers several options for solving problems:
- using a backup copy of the mobile application. The program creates a copy daily (the exchange of text and graphic messages, incoming and outgoing, including missed calls, is saved). When restoring, the user specifies time periods;
- recovery of text and graphic messages that were not sent due to technical failures. In such a situation, after the erased message, a graphic image is displayed, after clicking on which the data is restored.
In the event of an unplanned window update procedure involving the exchange of text and graphic messages, the solution would be to use the first recovery option. To take advantage, the user must activate the option to create a backup copy of the archive through the software settings. Please note that this is done until the moment when there is a need to return to communication through the chat form. Using this option, you can instantly restore data in the mobile application. For this purpose, the internal memory of a smartphone or tablet is used.
The popular software allows users to delete and restore data. The option is relevant for all users who do not violate the rules of the mobile application. To avoid mistakes, you need to adhere to a clear sequence of actions.
Time to delete a WhatsApp message
Initially, when the messaging app included a feature that allowed you to delete WhatsApp messages, there was a maximum of 7 minutes to be able to delete a message. That is, if we keep deleting it until the first 7 minutes after sending, we can delete it without any problem. Now if we try after this time, there will no longer be an option to delete the WhatsApp message.
Fortunately, Mark Zuckerberg later decided to extend this time, and today it is set to approximately one hour and 8 minutes. It's not as much as Telegram offers us, but the truth is that it offers us a little more freedom than when it was only 7 minutes.
However, if we want to delete a message sent to one of our contacts that has not yet been read, but we have sent it for more than an hour and 8 minutes, we can try to delete it as follows . We activate airplane mode in our terminal, enter the phone settings. change the time on the watch to set it immediately after sending the message, turn off airplane mode and continue deleting the WhatsApp message.
Phone with Windows operating system
If we consider a separate system that is not so popular, then the user can use the algorithm proposed for Android, since in general they are similar. However, there are some subtleties and nuances when deleting messages from a Windows phone.
Individual messages
To delete individual messages, the user must install the application in advance. If the application is installed, you can proceed to the algorithm:
- First, you should open WhatsApp and activate the chat whose messages will be deleted;
- Then you need to leave the message to be deleted until the user sees it highlighted;
- Now you should select the “Delete” item in the menu;
- We accept cancellation.
Deleting dialogues and group chats
In the case of group chats, everything is exactly the same. You need to long press the chat you want to delete, then tap Trash. Next, you should confirm the action and welcome the chat or group correspondence.