Why Does Messenger Delete Old Messages?
Why need to delete messages on Messenger, especially on both sides? There are several reasons.
- You accidentally send a message to someone that you do not intend to.
- You send the wrong message to the person.
- You are afraid of the receiver to forward or copy your message to others.
- You worry about the receiver using your message to frame you.
- You think it’s too hush to say those words to the receiver.
- …
In the above situations, you will be in dire need to delete old messages, especially on the receiver’s side.
Does Facebook Messenger Delete Old Messages?
Is it possible to delete old messages from Messenger for both sides? Of course. Nowadays, most messaging applications enable their users to recall their mistakenly-sent words within a certain period (not long in duration). For example, Facebook allows you to unsend a message within 10 minutes.
Does Messenger automatically delete old messages? Of course not. It requires your manual operation to get rid of the unwanted old messages from Facebook Messenger.
How to Delete Old Messages on Messenger from both Sides?
Here in this section, it will introduce you with the guide to delete messages on Facebook Messenger from both sides.
In general, in order to delete old Facebook messages, just hold the message, select More… > Remove, and choose Unsend. Then, a warning message will pop up telling you that “UKnsent messages are removed from the conversation, but they may still be included if the conversation is reported”. Just click OK to confirm.
Just as the message said, if the conversation isn’t reported (this is the usual case), the previously sent message will disappear from both your side of the chat and the receiver’s side of the chat. Also, you will see a confirmation note saying that “You unsent a message” if the message was deleted successfully. You can further delete the note from your app.
After that operation, the receiver won’t see the target message unless he is right there in your message chat window, which is nearly impossible. Another exception is that if the receiver has enabled push notifications for Messenger, there is a chance that they might have seen your message for a brief moment.
The push notification will only disappear after you tap the Unsend option. Even if you delete the message from both sides, there is still a little chance that they might have seen it.
All in all, to unsend a message is a way to completely delete a message from Facebook Messenger. There is no other alternative way to do that.
After unsending the target message, the receiver can only be notified that you have recalled a message sent to him without knowing what you have unsend and the content of the message. He will only see a notification on his side saying “xxx unsent a message”.
How to Delete Old Messages from Messenger?
If you only want to delete the old messages on your side and do not care about whether the other side can see them or not, on the one hand, you can make use of the above solution to achieve your aim. On the other hand, you can hit on the Remove for You option after tapping on the Remove option. That will only remove the target message from your side and keep it from the receiver’s side.
How to Delete All Old Messages on Messenger?
If you’d like to delete all previous Facebook messages, the direct way is to delete them one by one using the above method. Or, you can rely on a Chrome extension to help you delete all your old Facebook messages on Messenger from the web version.
Google Messenger Delete Old Messages
You can delete old or unwanted conversations from Messages, move them into your archives, or mark all messages as read.
Some of the following steps only work on Android 6.0 and up.
Generally, open the Message app, touch and hold each conversation, and tap Delete. If you take advantage of Messages as your default messaging app, the deleted conversations will also be deleted from your device.
Conclusion
The guide in this article is also applied to WhatApp and many other messaging programs. Although the steps are not exactly the same, the theory is similar.
To avoid the embarrassing accident of sending a message to the wrong person or sending a wrong message, to unsend it is not the perfect way. It is much better to check twice before sending. However, if the accident happens, unsending the message is a good way to remedy it. Yet, it is also possible the other person has already taken a screenshot of the message history.
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About The Author
Position: Columnist
Helen enjoys the process of turning video clips and photos about herself into beautiful videos. Then, she will share the videos on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The most exciting thing is to see the increasing number of views of her videos. Helen is willing to share her ideas about making wonderful videos from scratch. Thus, she writes articles for MiniTool Technology.