How to delete a sent message in Facebook Messenger

You press send, and as you watch that little message bubble bounce into the conversation, its check mark turns from “still sending” gray to “can’t undo this” blue, you realize with horror and embarrassment, I shouldn’t have sent that.

Maybe you sent a message to the wrong person, maybe your message had an embarrassing typo. If you’ve ever wished you could “un-send” a sent message, then this #TechTip is for you.

Facebook is finally rolling out the ability to remove sent messages from Messenger worldwide, millions of regretful messages later. First announced in late 2018, the feature was only available in a few countries. However, as of last week, everyone should now have the option to delete, or “un-send,” a sent message.

Here’s how it works:

1. Along the bottom of the screen will be a new Remove option; select it.
2. A prompt will ask if you want to Remove for everyone or Remove for you. The latter option only removes the message in your view of the conversation, whereas Remove for everyone will remove the message from the conversation for all recipients.
3. A placeholder message will let the recipients of the original message know you removed a message in place of where the message originally appeared. Not the sneakiest, but most likely better than the deleted message in question.

Note: It’s not immediately clear the purpose of the Remove for you option. We like to use it for those too-embarrassing-to-look-at-but-not-too-embarrassing-to-not-send messages.

Fair warning: you have to be quick when deleting; you have only 10 minutes after pressing send to delete the message. After that, your message is there for good.

The feature is also available while using Messenger via the Facebook site. Instead of long-pressing on a sent message, click the three-dot icon next to it, followed by the Remove option. The prompt asking if you want to Remove for everyone or Remove for you will show up, followed by the placeholder message to recipients once you select your removal option.