Message Recall is a hidden feature of WeChat which allows you to unsend, cancel or void a sent messages or files in WeChat conversations within two minutes. The message recall or undo feature can be very useful when you have a typo in the message, sent to the wrong person, sent the wrong file, said something wrong, and do not want the other person to receive or see what you have sent. For example, you are mad at someone and you said something stupid, later you realized it was wrong so you decided to take it back, then you can recall the message in WeChat so he or she won’t see it. The feature also works on photos, name cards or other files you sent in chats. Note that this feature is only available on WeChat 5.3.1 and later.
How to Recall Messages in WeChat on iPhone and Android?
Long press the message or file you would like to recall or take back in a WeChat chat window, you will get the context menu with options to manage the selected WeChat message or file. Touch Recall, you will get a prompt message saying, “you can recall the message you send within two minutes (this function is not supported on WeChat of older versions)”, tap on the OK button, then the selected message, photo, video or other file will be removed from WeChat on both the sender’s and recipient’s phone.
To recall messages in WeChat on iPhone, you need to use the tap the right arrow to show more options, then find and touch Recall option from there, after that the message will disappear from both your chat screen and the recipient’s.
Will the recipient know I have recalled a message?
Yes. The recipient will receive a system message in the chat window with you, saying “xxxx has recalled a message”.
The drawbacks of WeChat messages recall
The WeChat message recall feature doesn’t always work. If you have sent a text message, photo, video, contact name card or other data 2 minutes ago, you can’t unsend or recall them.
The recipient may have already opened and read the message before you recall it and you just do not know as WeChat does not tell us whether a message has been read or not so far. Unlike WhatsApp or other instant messenger, WeChat development team believe whether a message has been read or not is the privacy of the recipient. WeChat is an instant messenger, if the recipient is also online your sent messages could be received and read instantly, that’s too fast for you to pull back messages in WeChat. So always double check your messages and the recipient before you hit the send button when you are about to send important messages or chatting with important person.
The recalled WeChat message will disappear from both your chat screen and the recipient’s screen. However recalled WeChat text message will not completely disappear. Recalled messages will be deleted within the WeChat app, but it leaves traces in other places, such as the notification center on iPhone, etc. You can refer to this guide to read recalled messages in WeChat on iPhone.
Last but not least, when you recalled a message in WeChat, the chat app will send a Message Recall notice to the recipient instantly, when the recipients gets this notice they may become more curious about the message and want to immediately open and read what you don’t want them to read. As we have mentioned in previous paragraph, the recalled messages in WeChat still leave traces on our phone and might be retrieved.