Facebook now lets you delete messages for 10 minutes after they've already been sent — here's how to use the feature

• Facebook Messenger now lets users delete their sent messages, up to 10 minutes after they've already been sent.
• Facebook said back in April it would roll the feature out to the general public after CEO Mark Zuckerberg was caught quietly deleting old messages.
• Here's how you can "unsend" your Facebook messages, which is now available to all iOS and Android users.

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Facebook Messenger has given its users the ability to delete their messages, up to 10 minutes after they've already been sent out.

The new feature is designed for anyone who has "accidentally sent a message to the wrong group of friends, mistyped something, or simply wanted to remove a message in a chat," Facebook says.

This "unsend" feature was first teased back in April 2018, and additional details were spotted in the release notes for a Messenger app update in November. Now, it's available for all users. 

Facebook's initial announcement about this feature was made after TechCrunch reported that old messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg were disappearing from recipients' inboxes without their knowledge. Facebook claimed it had deleted the messages for security reasons in the wake of the 2014 hack of Sony executives' emails.

But critics reamed Facebook for its actions, claiming the social network had breached user trust, and set different standards for company executives and the general public. Experts also warned that letting users "unsend" messages could promote abuse and harassment on the platform, since evidence of such behavior could be removed.

However, the added ability to "unsend" text on Messenger is long-delayed considering that similar features have long existed on Facebook-owned apps WhatsApp and Instagram. WhatsApp added an "unsend" feature in 2017 for messages up to an hour after they've been sent, and Instagram has allowed for users to remove messages ever since direct messaging was added to the platform in 2013.

Now that Facebook Messenger has finally joined the party, here's how you can "unsend" messages: