iOS 16: How to Edit or Delete Sent iMessages
Apple released iOS 16 for iPhone Last fall and software update brought many new iOS features.
It includes a new one lock screen that you can fully customizeand the Mail app has some new features that make it more like Gmail.
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But one of the biggest updates is found in the Messages app. Apple has added the ability to edit sent messages or even delete messages that you may have accidentally sent to the wrong person.
Here’s how you can edit and delete sent iMessages. Just to be clear — you can only use the edit and delete features on iMessages, not regular text messages.
How to edit messages
I think it’s safe to say that most iPhone users have sent iMessages with embarrassing typos from time to time. Before iOS 16, you had to own the bug and accept that it would live forever on the recipient’s phone. But now, in iOS 16, you can edit a message within 15 minutes of the message being sent.
As long as you stay within the 15 minute window, all you need to do is press and hold the message, then select Editing from the list of options. The text field will show a fallback, allowing you to correct the error and then save it.
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On the recipient side, if they’re also using iOS 16, a small “Edited” label will appear below the new version of the message that no longer contains your error. If they tap the Edited label, they’ll see a log of the changes you’ve made to the message. If you make multiple changes, each will show up in the history.
People using older iOS versions will receive a second message with the corrected text.
How to delete sent messages
The process of completely deleting messages you’ve sent within the last 2 minutes — useful if you’ve sent them to the wrong contacts or threads — is a bit like editing a message. Originally, deleting a false message had the same 15-minute interval as editing a message, but Apple eventually changed the limit to 2 minutes to prevent abuse of the feature.
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When you realize an error in your way, press and hold the notification until you see a pop-up menu. From that menu, tap undo send. There’s a small animation that says the message is gone, followed by a line of text in the thread letting everyone know a message has been deleted.
Easy, right?
And if you want to prevent your recipients from seeing the edit history of an edited message, you can always delete the sent message and resend the currently edited text instead.
The best part is that this also works on iPad and Mac once they are running iPadOS 16″ and MacOS. So feel free to make mistakes on whatever device you’re chatting on — because you can now fix them, as long as you act quickly.