WhatsApp’s delete messages feature appears to be rolling out

The messaging platform has been testing the feature this year, and now it appears to be moving closer to a full release after support pages for the tool were spotted on the WhatsApp website.

Reports of the feature being on the verge of a roll-out have been circulating for some time, led by a prominent WhatsApp beta testing Twitter account.

The updated FAQs on the WhatsApp site reveal that users will be able to permanently delete messages from individual or group messages up to seven minutes after they’ve been sent.

Any message that is selected for deletion will be replaced with “this message was deleted” in the recipient’s chat or group message.

The feature appears to be slowly rolling out to some users, but is not yet widely available.

(Yui Mok/PA)

There are also several disclaimers on the WhatsApp support page about using the feature. WhatsApp says that it will only be available in conversations where both parties are running the most recent version of the app.

The Facebook-owned app also warned that recipients may see a message before it’s deleted – for example in a notification banner – and in some instances it may not work at all.

WhatsApp also warned users that they would not be notified if an attempted deletion did not work.

Regardless of potential pitfalls, the feature is likely to be popular among WhatsApp users, who have been pressuring the service to introduce such an option for some time.