WhatsApp's 'Delete For Everyone' Feature Has A Loophole: How To Read Deleted Messages

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps globally with over 1.5 billion monthly active users. Its popularity is mainly driven by the ease of use, and the number of features the Facebook-owned platform offers to its users.
For WhatsApp, last year was particularly important with the application adding a ton of new features including voice calling, video calling to name a few. One of the most prominent updates was the ability to recall messages. WhatsApp called the feature as ‘delete for all’, and it gives users a brief window to delete messages from both the ends of communication.

WhatsApp allows its users to delete the message sent within seven minutes by deleting it for the sender as well as receiver. However, The Next Web reports that there is a way to retain the deleted messages. It notes that deleted messages can be retained as soon as the receiver gets the message or at any point between seven minutes, after which the message cannot be deleted.
One of the simplest ways to retain the deleted message is by selecting that particular messages and sending it as a quoted text. So, even after the sender deletes the original message, there is an option to view them in the form of quote. It is not clear whether this is a bug or is it meant to work the same way.
WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, and the company says that the messages are deleted from its server end as soon as the sender deletes them for all. While WhatsApp says that a message can only be deleted within seven minutes of it being sent, a Spanish blog claims that messages can be deleted even after seven minutes. It says the hack works for both read and unread messages on the messaging platform.

It says that the messages exist as a notification in the device’s notification log and Android Jefe saysusers can delete messages from there or even access the recalled messages through a third-party Android app called Notification History. WhatsApp might be planning to fix these loopholes in its system, but one cannot deny the advantage of having a feature like this. If only Twitter adds an option to edit tweets, our social life will get more sorted and simplified.


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