Forwarding and managing messages

The messenger is built around the idea that a chat is a record. Messages don't quietly disappear; deletion has rules; forwards keep the original author visible. This page walks through what you can do to messages — yours and others' — and what each action means for the other side.

Hover actions

When you hover over any message bubble, a small action strip appears in the top-right corner of the row. The buttons there change depending on what you're allowed to do with that specific message.

• Forward — always available, except for system notices ("Alice joined the group") and your own messages that haven't been read yet.
• Delete — only on your own messages, and only while they can still be deleted (see Deleting your own messages below).

Forwarding a message

Forwarding sends a copy of an existing message to another chat. The copy is owned by you (you're the sender of the new row), but it carries a small "Forwarded from {original author}" label so the recipient sees who originally wrote it.

The flow

1. Hover over the message you want to forward, click the forward icon (the bent-arrow one).
2. The destination picker opens — a modal with all your conversations sorted by recency, including Saved Messages.
3. Type to filter, or scroll. Click the destination chat.
4. The forward is sent and the picker closes. You stay on your current chat.

What gets copied

• The text content.
• Any attachments — photos, files, voice notes. The forwarded copy points to the same files as the original (it doesn't re-upload them).
• The original author's identity, on the "Forwarded from" badge.

What does NOT get copied

• Read state. The forward starts fresh — its recipient hasn't read it.
• The original chat's listing card (if any). Listing inquiries' embedded listing belongs to that chat; it doesn't travel.

Forwarding through chains

If someone forwards a message to you, and you forward it onward, the "Forwarded from" label stays pointing to the first author, not to the intermediate forwarder. So if Alice writes a message → Bob forwards to Carol → Carol forwards to Dan, Dan sees "Forwarded from Alice" — same as if Alice had sent it directly.

This is the same convention as Telegram. We do it because the intent of the forward is to share Alice's words; the chain of intermediaries isn't useful information for the final reader.

When you can't forward

The forward icon is hidden when:

• The message is system-generated ("X joined the chat").
• It's your own message and hasn't been read yet by the recipient and the chat isn't Saved Messages. Why: while the message is unread, you can still delete it — and we don't want to leave a forward pointing at attachments that might disappear.
• The message is in flight (just sent, hasn't been confirmed by the server). Wait a half-second; it'll be available.

If you click forward and the server rejects it (very rare — typically because the destination chat got archived between you opening the picker and clicking), the modal shows an error. Just try a different destination.

Deleting your own messages

You can delete your own messages, but the rules are tighter than the typical messenger to keep conversations honest.

When you can delete

• Anywhere in Saved Messages — anytime, regardless of "read" status. It's your personal space.
• In any chat while the message is still unread by everyone else. The moment the recipient opens the chat, the message is locked: it stays in the record forever.

This means: you can fix a typo by deleting and re-sending, but only if the other side hasn't seen the typo yet. After they've read it, you have to live with it.

When deletion silently fails

If you tap delete just as the recipient opens the chat — a race we can't avoid — the server will quietly say "no, too late". The UI doesn't show a scary error; it just refuses, and the message stays. This is intentional: the delete affordance disappears the moment "read" flips to true, but with realtime races, the affordance can be one frame stale.

What other people see when you delete

Nothing dramatic. The message bubble vanishes from their chat. There's no "This message was deleted" placeholder.

In group chats: the same. Your message vanishes for everyone.

Admin override

Platform administrators can delete any message, including ones that have been read. This is a moderation tool; it shows up as the same silent removal — there's no "deleted by admin" tag.

Read receipts (the "ticks")

Below your own messages in a chat, you'll see one or two ticks:

• One grey tick — the message has been sent and persisted on our servers.
• Two blue ticks — the recipient has opened the chat since the message was delivered.

In group chats, the two-tick state means all current participants have opened the chat — which is a high bar. In v1 we don't show "read by 3 of 5" yet.

In Saved Messages, ticks are not shown — it's just you, so the concept doesn't apply.

What "read" actually means here

When you open a chat that has unread messages, the platform marks every message you can see as read. There's a small delay (~300 ms) so it doesn't fire if you're just bouncing through chats with arrow keys.

You can't "un-read" a message. Once read, it's read for the sender's perspective.

Cross-device behaviour

Two important guarantees:

• Reading on one device shows the chat as read on others. If you read a message on your phone, your desktop tab updates the next time it reconnects (within seconds).
• Sending from one device echoes on others. Send a message from your laptop, your phone shows it in the chat almost immediately.

If a device is offline, nothing happens until it reconnects — at which point it pulls the latest state and catches up.

Where to next

• The right-hand panel collects every photo, file and link in a chat. See Finding info in a chat.
• The privacy model for who sees what is in Messenger privacy and security.