Apple has made some significant modifications to the Messages app in iOS 16 and included certain functionality that competing third-party messaging systems have long had. Unending sent iMessage in iOS 16 is one of these improvements. Read on to see how it works.
Have you ever sent a text message just to wish you hadn’t right away? With earlier iterations of iOS, if you sent a message over Apple’s iMessage service, there was nothing you could do to reverse it. However, in iOS 16, you can reverse an iMessage, at least to a certain extent.
The new Unsend tool has several restrictions that are important to remember. First off, using the undo send function on a message sent to a user of an older version of iOS won’t work and the message won’t be returned.
In some circumstances, even if the message vanishes from your iPhone, the recipient won’t be able to tell that you deleted it. If this occurs, a notification will appear that reads: “A message was returned. On devices running previous iOS versions, [Person] may still be able to see your message.”
Second, once an iMessage has been sent, you may choose to unsend it for a maximum of two minutes. You can no longer unsend a message if it was sent more than two minutes ago (although you may still be able to edit the iMessage).
Here’s how to cancel a sent iMessage on an iPhone or iPad running iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 keeping the aforementioned restrictions in mind.
- Open the conversation thread containing the sent message that you want to retract in the Messages app.
- To edit a sent message, hold down the mouse button on it.
- From the pop-over menu, choose Unsend. (If you don’t see the choice, it can no longer be revoked since at least two minutes have passed.)
- The phrase “You unsent a message” will show in its place once the message vanishes.
All there is to it is that. Did you know that iOS 16 allows for the editing of iMessages as well? To find out how, see our how-to page.
