Delete seven days old messages with this WhatsApp trick

Not long ago, WhatsApp announced its new feature ‘Delete for Everyone’ that lets user unsend messages within seven minutes. But here’s a catch, you can now delete messages that are up to seven days old!

The ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature allowed users to delete messages from the receiver’s end within seven minutes, sending a notification ‘This message was deleted’ to both the receiver and the sender. This new trick is not a new update but a sneaky way to delete messages that are a week old. However, the message which exceeds the time limit of seven days won’t be deleted.

People at Android Jefe pointed out the few simple steps that let the user to delete or unsend the messages.

Loophole lets users read deleted messages on WhatsApp

Firstly, the user would have to turn off the WiFi and Mobile Data connection. Then go to the ‘Settings’, select ‘Apps’ and scroll down to ‘WhatsApp’, tap on it and press ‘Force Stop’. The next step is to go to the ‘Date and Time’ settings and set the time and date for the messages the user wants to delete. The user should keep in mind that the time and date should be in accordance to the messages that is supposed to be deleted. Then, turn off the network provided time option. Reopen WhatsApp and delete the message by tapping on ‘Delete for Everyone’. Finally, turn on the WiFi/Mobile Data again and the message will be replaced by ‘This message was deleted’.

However, both the sender and receiver should have the latest version of WhatsApp for this trick to work. Also, going too far back to the time and date would prompt the Facebook owned app to force the user to select the right date. Though the bug might not last long enough, till then users can enjoy the trick for the time being.