For anyone who’s ever sent a message and immediately felt their stomach drop, Google has quietly given the native Messages app a do-over button. After months of teases, early beta sightings and code clues, Google Messages is rolling out an unsend option that can actually remove a sent message from other people’s phones — not just yours. That matters because, for a lot of people, the stock messaging app is where everyday conversations, work coordination and quick mistakes happen.

Longstanding limitations of SMS — one-way delivery, no read receipts, no high-res photos — have been slowly eroded by RCS (Rich Communication Services), a modern messaging protocol Google has embraced. The unsend feature builds on RCS: when you long-press a message you sent, Messages now shows two choices — “Delete for me” and “Delete for everyone.” Choose the latter and the app attempts to remove the message for every participant in the conversation; the chat will typically show a small “Message deleted” placeholder where the original text used to be. Early testing began in Google’s beta builds in the spring and the option has been expanding to stable builds in recent weeks.

The flow is familiar if you’ve used unsend in apps like WhatsApp or Telegram: send a message, realize the mistake, long-press the message, tap the trash icon and pick “Delete for everyone.” There’s a practical limit — in most reports, the app only lets you undo a message within a short window after sending (about 15 minutes in the versions tested). After that window closes, the option disappears and the message stays. When the delete succeeds for everyone, other participants see an indicator that something was removed; they don’t see the original content.

This isn’t magic — the feature relies on RCS. That means the delete command travels over the same richer, internet-backed channel that enables read receipts and high-quality media. If a conversation falls back to SMS/MMS — for example, because someone turned RCS off or is on a device that doesn’t support it — the server-side “delete for everyone” won’t work. In other words, for the feature to work reliably, every participant needs to be on an RCS path and, in many cases, on a recent version of Google Messages. Early rollouts also leaned toward group RCS chats rather than every single one-to-one conversation, so experiences can vary across devices and regions.

Hints of an unsend option appeared months ago in Messages’ source code and in the code-watching community. Google began testing the feature with beta users earlier in 2025, and outlets spotted the “Delete for everyone” option in May. Since then, the option has been widened to more users and is appearing in stable builds on a rolling basis, which is why some people see it today while others still don’t. Rollouts like this tend to be gradual: Google enables a feature server-side and ships app updates that unlock it for different groups across regions.

• If you use Google Messages and care about unsending, make sure your RCS chats are enabled and your app is updated to the latest stable version. You can toggle RCS in Messages settings if needed.
• Don’t assume unsend is foolproof: if a recipient’s phone is offline, on an old Messages build, or using SMS, the deletion may fail or be delayed.
• Expect a short undo window — reports consistently point to roughly 15 minutes. Act fast if you need to retract something.

Unsend for Messages is a small but meaningful step toward treating the Android messaging ecosystem more like modern chat platforms. For users who rely on the native app — not just third-party apps — it reduces the friction of accidental sends and gives a little breathing room after sending. For privacy-minded users it’s helpful, but it’s not a replacement for careful messaging: unsend doesn’t guarantee the recipient didn’t already see or copy your message in that short window. The technical reliance on RCS means this is also part of Google’s broader bet on making RCS the backbone of richer, cross-carrier text chat on Android.

If you use Google Messages, check for the feature — you might already have the power to take back that regrettable text. If you don’t see it yet, be patient: Google has been expanding availability since beta tests earlier this year, and the stable rollout appears to be reaching more users now. Even with limits, unsend is one of those small user-experience wins that quietly makes everyday life a little less stressful.