You get 15 minutes after sending a message to edit it.
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It’s official. Meta is rolling out editable messages on WhatsApp. The messaging service announced the new feature via its blog today, although the feature has been spotted in beta versions of its apps for a few months now. WhatsApp’s blog notes that the feature has already started rolling out globally and will be available to all users “in the coming weeks.”
You access the feature by long-pressing the message you want to edit and selecting “edit.” Messages are editable for up to 15 minutes, so you’re not going to be able to amend any older mistakes. Edited messages will display a small “edited” notice next to their timestamp to let chat participants know they’ve been changed. It’s a very similar approach to the one Apple used for iMessage when it added its version of the feature last year.
WhatsApp has long offered users the option of deleting messages, so technically, it’s already possible to fix typos by deleting the offending message and resending it. But deleting a message replaces it with a “this message was deleted” notice, which can look messy. Simply editing a message should be much neater.
The launch of editable messages comes during an unusually busy month for WhatsApp. In this month alone, it’s released a new app for Wear OS smartwatches, rolled out new options for polls and captions, and announced a new locked conversations feature.
