Here's Why You Can't Unsend Messages In iMessage On iPhone

Texting has become an unavoidable part of our daily lives; you may even prefer it over voice calls. This modern convenience has made it easy to stay in touch with friends and family throughout the day, but it also has a downside — it can be hard to keep up with all those chat bubbles. It's not uncommon to have conversations going on with multiple people over text, sometimes at the same time. When you're switching back and forth between those messages, things can go wrong, like sending a message to the wrong person.

If you're a frequent texter, it's probably happened to you: You hit the send button only to realize a few seconds later that you've sent a message to the wrong person. Depending on the content of the message, you might experience a range of emotions, from mortification to indifference. What you want to do is get that message back. However, if you use iMessage, that can be difficult, if not downright impossible. While iMessage has a ton of features, unsending messages is an area of difficulty. 

For years, iMessage has lagged behind popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram in letting people edit and unsend messages. However, that changed with the release of iOS 16, which added unsend functionality to iPhones. The only problem is if your phone doesn't support iOS 16 — and there are quite a few that don't — you're out of luck. But let's say you own the highly-rated iPhone 15, you'll obviously have the latest iOS, so you should be able to delete messages to your heart's content, right? Unfortunately, the ability to unsend doesn't solely depend on the iOS version you're using. If the person you're sending a message to doesn't have iOS 16 or later, you won't be able to unsend the message. Instead, you'll receive a message saying the original message may still be visible to the recipient. 

This isn't the only scenario where you won't be able to unsend a message. Even if you're running iOS 16 or higher on your iPhone, you have to delete the unwanted message within two minutes of sending it. Otherwise, you'll only be able to edit the message, and that has a 15-minute time limit. While unsending messages on iPhone is pretty straightforward, the person you sent it to may have time to read it before you delete it (a preview on the lock screen), and even if they don't, they'll get a notification that you unsent it.