Telegram adds delete option which will ‘kill’ chat history
Telegram, the private messaging app, has added a new feature that lets users delete messages in one-to-one and or group private chats, after the fact, and not only from their own inbox.
The new ‘nuclear option’ delete feature allows a user to selectively delete their own messages and or messages sent by any or all others in the chat.
They don’t even have to have composed the original message or begun the thread to do so. They can just decide it’s time.
This will only happen if only one is running the latest version of Telegram’s app.
All it now takes is a few taps to wipe all trace of a historical communication, from both your own inbox and the inbox(es) of whoever else you were chatting with.
PRIVACY FEATURE
Previously, Telegram allowed you to delete a message sent to a private chat within 48 hours and only limited to deleting messages on both ends of what you sent.
This will prove to be a popular feature and it is similar to what Telegram offers in Secret Chat. In Secret Chat, you set a timer for the automatic disappearance of your chat with the said person without leaving a trace.
The other ‘privacy’ related feature Telegram also added on Monday was Anonymous Forwarding.
Introducing a new kind of private communication: unsend any message, anonymized forwarding and more https://t.co/hVt3SgQrcu
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) March 24, 2019
When this setting is enabled, it will not show where the message came from.
Currently, when you forwarded messages on Telegram, it shows where the message came from.
DELETING MESSAGES
Other neat features that have been added in the new update include an improved search, emoji search and GIFs and support for accessibility features (VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android).
The “delete any message in both ends in any private chat, anytime” feature has been added in an update to version 5.5 of Telegram, which the messaging app bills as offering “more privacy”, among a slate of other updates including search enhancements and more granular controls.
To delete a message from both ends a user taps on the message, selects ‘delete’ and then they’re offered a choice of ‘delete for (the name of the other person in the chat or for ‘everyone’) or ‘delete for me’.
Selecting the former deletes the message everywhere, while the later just removes it from your own inbox.