Today, WhatsApp finally announced one of the most anticipated features: message editing.
Mark Zuckerberg noted in a Facebook post that users can now edit a message within 15 minutes of sending it. If you wish, you can long-press on the message and tap “edit” to edit it. Edited messages will have an “edited” label next to the time stamp, indicating the change. However, the app will not keep a history of edits—other users will not be able to see previous versions of edited messages.
"We're excited to give you more control over your conversations, like correcting spelling mistakes or adding more context to a message. To do this, within 15 minutes of sending the message, you need to long-press on that message for a moment and then select the 'Edit' option from the menu," the company said in a post.
Until now, users had to either delete a message entirely or send a correction in a separate message. Last year, the chat app increased the time limit for deleting a message from two days (48 hours) to 60 hours.
WhatsApp competitors like Telegram and Signalhave long offered the ability to edit messages. With iOS 16, Apple introduced the ability to edit and unsend messages sent via iMessage. Even Twitter introduced an edit button for paying users last year. While the time limit for editing a message isn’t as generous as Telegram’s 48-hour window, it’s still better than nothing.
Meta said the feature is already rolling out to users and will be available to everyone in a few weeks.
Information source: techcrunch.com
