Thankfully, deleting WhatsApp messages is easy and only requires a few clicks. If you don’t want the recipient to know that you opened their messages before deleting them, here are a few tricks on how to do that. Our screenshots are taken with the Android version, but the steps work on iPhones too.
Disable read receipts and delete WhatsApp messages
The read receipt ensures that your chat partners see blue ticks when you read their messages. If you disable read receipts (temporarily), you can delete the message without the chat partner seeing that you have read it.
Follow our Step-by-step instructions or look at the quick start Guide an.
Delete whole WhatsApp chats
In WhatsApp you can delete entire chats without opening them. You can also delete messages that you don’t want to open at the same time. Of course, the rest of the messages also disappear with this method.
Delete WhatsApp messages in flight mode
Read receipts are only transmitted in WhatsApp if there is also a connection to the Internet. Therefore, you can simply put your smartphone in flight mode to block all connections and easily delete unread messages.
Follow our Step-by-step instructions or look at the quick start Guide an.
Quick Guide: Disable Read Receipts
- In WhatsApp, open the menu with the three vertical points in the top right corner and select “settings“. For iPhone, go directly to ” in the bottom right cornersettings“.
- Then tap on “Account” and then on “privacy“.
- Now deactivate the slider at “read receipts” so that it appears gray.
- You can then open the chat where you want to delete the message. Hold the message to delete presseduntil the menu appears and then tap the waste paper bin.
- Then tap on “delete for me” to remove the message without officially reading it.
Quick guide: Airplane mode
- Activate the Flight mode on your smartphone, for example by using the shortcut in the Control center or in the settings under “Network & Internet” or “links” tap.
- With active flight mode, you can open the desired chat in WhatsApp and delete the corresponding message there. Therefore keep Hold it down until the menu appears, and then select the trash can icon.
- Then confirm by clicking on “delete for me” type.
