Today we're going to teach you how to erase older WhatsApp messages within seven minutes of what's normally allowed. Deleted messages will disappear from both your screen and other people in the conversation.
WhatsApp allows you to erase sent messages, as long as you do so within seven minutes of sending them. However, it is possible to circumvent this limitation and delete messages sent up to five days earlier.It's a bit of a long process, but quite simple.
WhatsApp allows you to delete a sender and recipient message for up to seven minutes after it was sent, but WhatsApp can be tricked by falsifying the system's date and time.
Delete old messages in WhatsApp
The first thing you need to know is exactly when and when the message was sent. The best way to know for sure is to tap the message (1) for a long time until the message is selected and the button bar at the top is displayed. Click here on the info button (2) to find out which date and time the message was sent.
The next step is to activate the phone's Airplane Mode. A simple way to do this is to display the notification panel by dragging down from the top of the screen and tapping the aircraft button. On some phones, it is possible to activate the aircraft mode from the sleep menu, which appears when you press and hold the mobile phone on/off button for a long time.
Then close WhatsApp completely. The best way to make sure of this is to go to the Android Settings (1) and go to the Applications section (2). Note that Android's setup menus vary from model to model, although if you can't find the section you can always use the options search, tapping on the magnifying glass.
Once inside the applications section, look for WhatsApp (1) and tap on it to open your options. Then press Force Stop (2), which you will have to confirm again when a pop-up window warns you that this may cause errors.
The next step is to go back to the Android Settings, but this time to the Date and Time settings (1). Again, the specific menu varies from one mobile phone to another, although it is usually included in the general settings. If you don't find the option, use the settings search engine.
Deactivate the automatic date and time (2) to change them manually, then set the date and time one or two minutes after you sent the message you wanted to delete.
Finally, all you need to do is go back to WhatsApp, open the conversation, tap on the message you wanted to delete and click on the trash can icon (1) to see that you now have the option to delete for everyone (2). Pressing it deletes the message.
At this point, you can deactivate airplane mode so that WhatsApp sends the deletion request to its servers and deletes it in the receiver of the message. You can then go back over your steps to reset the system time and date to the current one.