WhatsApp has quietly increased the amount of time you have to unsend a message to over an hour.

Having initially unveiled the ability to unsend messages back in October WhatsApp inexplicably gave you just seven minutes to delete the message from the moment you sent it.

According to WABetaInfo that time limit has now been increased to an equally as specific one hour, eight minutes and 16 seconds. Why so specific? Currently no-one has a clue.

Unsending a message on WhatsApp effectively allows you to delete a message from both your device and the recipient’s phone, regardless of whether they’ve seen the message or not.

If you’re new to the world of unsending WhatsApp messages then here’s a quick explainer of how it works.

1. If you’re within an hour of sending the message then simply press down on the message and you’ll have the option to ‘Delete’.

2. You’ll now see a message that says either ‘Delete for Everyone’ which completely unsends the message on everyone’s device or ‘Delete for Me’ which just deletes the message from your phone. 

3. Press ‘Delete for Everyone’ and a new automated alert will appear in the chat which simply says there used to be a message here but that it has been deleted.

Everyone can see this, including the recipient so they will know that you’d deleted a message.

4. A final word of warning. If you’re hoping to delete a message without that person seeing then here’s a little reminder from WhatsApp on how the ticks work within messages.