There are countless things in life that we desperately wish we could take back afterward. In most cases, they’re words that weren’t meant to come out in the first place. It could be an expression of love for someone who’s unavailable, hurtful things said in the moment of heat, or an insult that hurt someone more than you could’ve imagined in that moment.
Be it our actions or words; as humans, we’re all bound to make mistakes and then feel a desperate urge to fix them somehow, don’t we? Well, while not all mistakes made in life are fixable, if there’s a particular mistake you made on WhatsApp, you could end up finding just the right fix for it.
By mistake here, we mean sending someone a message that you might change your mind about later because WhatsApp is primarily an instant messaging app, after all. So, if you’ve made a mistake on this social media platform, you can undo it by deleting that particular message(s) for everyone. This relatively new feature on WhatsApp has rubbed off on all users, in some cases, making them even more careless than before. Now, it’s not for us to say whether that’s a positive or negative development.
Then what are we doing here today? Well, we’re only going to talk in-depth about the Delete for Everyone feature on WhatsApp and explore the possibility of its recovery. If that’s something you’ve been wondering about, come aboard!
How to Undo Delete for Everyone on WhatsApp
We began our blog by talking about making mistakes and wishing to take them back later on. But now that WhatsApp has made that such an easy job, people have started using it to such an extent that they’re currently on the lookout for ways to undo Delete for Everyone.
Confused? Allow us to explain with an example. Suppose a couple is chatting over WhatsApp, and in a heated argument, the boy sends a message to the girl and deletes it right away. Perhaps he might’ve typed a message too rude to be sent and could, therefore, have deleted it upon realizing it. But what will it all look like to the girl? Chances are, she’ll just end up imagining the worst possible outcome and stretch it into an even bigger fight.
Now, if you were in place of this boy, and the message you had sent wasn’t really as bad as your lover thought, wouldn’t you wish for a way to undo the whole thing and bring it back? This is the kind of double mistake we were referring to above.
So, if you’ve ever been in a similar situation and wished for a way to undo your deletion act, we’re all in the same boat. But can such a thing even be done on WhatsApp? Truth be told, there’s no direct way of undoing Delete for Everyone on the platform.
Deleting a message, in general, is a permanent action on WhatsApp and cannot be undone in any way. So, unless you have a screenshot of that message, we’re afraid it might be lost to you forever… or not? Keep reading the next section to learn more.
Is there another way to recover the messages you’ve deleted for everyone on WhatsApp?
In the last section, we discovered that there wasn’t any direct way of recovering a WhatsApp message after deleting it for everyone. But what about ways that aren’t direct? Do you have any idea about another, indirect way this error can be fixed? Well, the answer to this question depends on time.
Wondering how? Do you remember how WhatsApp offers you a way to backup all your data to your Google Drive or iCloud storage? This feature was rolled out to protect users’ data in case they switched their smartphones or deleted the app by mistake, but it can come in handy in this situation as well.
However, for this method to work, you’ll need to move fast. Because if your backup is set for 24 hours (which is the most commonly used option) and you don’t use this method before that time period, your old backup (with the message) will be lost as the next day’s backup is completed.
Are you still within the safe time zone? Great! To recover the deleted message, you’ll need to delete WhatsApp from your smartphone and re-install it. And when you’re asked to download your WhatsApp data backed up on your cloud, grant the permission to go ahead with it.
When the messages are restored, at last, you might find the message right where it was. Remember, it’s preferable to connect to Wi-Fi for a smoother downloading process.
Delete for Me: How is this feature different from Delete for Everyone?
Would you do a little thing for us? Scroll up to the second subheading of the blog and check out the fourth step of the step-by-step guide written there. Can you spot the three deletion options? The first one on that list is: DELETE FOR ME.
Wondering what this option does? Well, unlike DELETE FOR EVERYONE, which deletes a message sent by you for both parties, the DELETE FOR ME option deletes the selected messages from only your device. In other words, the other party can still see the message; you’ve only deleted it for yourself.
This option is common for both deleting your own messages as well as deleting the message someone else sent you.
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