Did you just send a text message to the wrong person and are panicking? Don’t worry. This happens to the best of us! If you are wondering how to delete a text message sent to the wrong person, you have arrived at the right place. Today I will show you the best way to do it and what are the best chatting apps to use to avoid mistakes like sending a text to the wrong person.
Regular text messages can only be deleted on the sender’s phone. Whether you are using iPhone’s iMessage system or Android standard messaging, you can’t delete a text sent to the wrong person, from the person’s phone. The text will disappear from your conversation, but the person will still be able to read it. If you are using a modern chatting platform like Facebook’s Messenger or WhatsApp, you can delete any messages. This can be done with the “unsend” function. You need to hold and press the message until a list of options pop up. Select “unsend message” and it will be deleted. Be aware that the receiver will see the “message unsent” notification.
As annoying as it can be that iPhones and Android devices don’t allow users to delete texts that they sent to the wrong person, there are some workarounds that make this possible.
Can You Delete a Text Sent to a Wrong Person?
Right from the start, I want to mention that there’s no way to delete a text that you sent to the wrong person if you are using the classic messaging method like iMessages on iOS or standard texts on Android. The apps allow users to delete the messages on their end but unfortunately, this doesn’t work for the receiver. So, while you can make it seem like the text was never sent on your smartphone, the person who is receiving it will still see it.
How Do You Delete Text Messages on Both Sides?
If you like texting with your friends and hate it when you make a mistake such as sending a message to the wrong person, you should consider using Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. These are some of the most popular messaging apps in the world and they both have a useful feature that allows users to unsend messages. In case you send a text to the wrong person and want to get rid of it ASAP, you can simply unsend the text before anyone else gets to see it. Follow the guide below to learn how to do it:
- Press and hold on the text you want to delete;
- Select the “More” option;
- Tap on “Unsend” (it’s written in red);
- Select “Unsend for Everyone:
- The text will now disappear and the “You unsent a message” will appear in the chat.
One of the best things about switching to Facebook Messenger is the fact that the app is constantly updated with new features like Dark Mode, for example.
How to Unsend an Email on Gmail?
Sending a text to the wrong person can be scary, but things get even worse when you send an email to someone who shouldn’t receive it. That’s not all. You can make the mistake of sending a casual email to a person from work. On the bright side of things, Google knows that this happens far too often and introduced a cool feature to Gmail that allows users to unsend emails. The feature works similar to the way Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. However, there’s a trick to unsending emails on Gmail.
Right in the moment that you press “Send” on an email, there will be a button called “Unsend” in the bottom left corner of your screen. You have around 10 seconds to press the button. If 10 seconds doesn’t seem like enough time, you can choose to increase the time. The guide below shows how you can do it:
- Access Settings on Gmail;
- Scroll down and select the Undo Send option;
- Enable “Undo Send” and select the preferred cancellation period: 10, 20, or 30 seconds;
- Click on Save Changes.