How to unsend and edit messages on iPad

Thursday October 15, 2026 12:41 pm EAT by Tyler Stephen

You can unsend and edit recent text messages, giving you the opportunity to fix a typo or pull back a message that you accidentally sent to the wrong person. You can undo a message for up to 2 minutes after sending it, and edit it up to five times within 15 minutes.

Note: Unsending or editing text messages, or seeing when others unsend or edit messages you receive, requires iMessage running iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1, macOS 13, visionOS 1, or later. When you unsend a message to someone using an earlier operating system, the original message stays in the conversation, and you get a notification that the recipient may still see it. When you edit a message to someone using an earlier operating system, they get follow-up messages that start with the preface “Edited to” and then your new message in quotation marks. Editing or unsending SMS, MMS, or RCS text messages isn’t possible. And when you edit a text message in a group conversation, your edits are visible only to iMessage users.

Unsend a message

You can undo a recently sent message for up to 2 minutes after sending it.

Go to the Messages app on your iPad.
Touch and hold the message bubble and tap Undo Send.

A note confirming that you unsent the message appears in both conversation transcripts: yours and your recipient’s.

Unsending removes the message from your recipient’s device.

Edit a sent message

You can edit a recently sent message up to five times within 15 minutes of sending it.

Start the Messages app on your iPad.
Select a conversation with the message you want to edit.
Touch and hold the message bubble, then tap Edit.
Make any changes. Tap the Send Edit button to resend with edits or the Cancel Edit button to revert.

Note: The message is marked as Edited in the conversation transcript.

The message bubble updates to reflect your edits on both your iPad and your recipient’s device, and both of you can tap Edited to see previous versions of your message.