Facebook Messenger finally introduces 'unsend' feature – but there's a catch

Facebook will introduce its long-awaited 'unsend' feature to its Messenger app, finally allowing people to delete accidental messages.

The new feature will come as a part of an upcoming update to the popular messaging app, though Facebook Messenger has warned that it can only be used within 10 minutes of sending the message.

"Coming soon: Remove a message from a chat thread after it's been sent," Facebook Messenger announced in the release notes for Version 191.0 of the iOS app.

"If you accidentally send the wrong photo, incorrect information or message the wrong thread, you can easily correct it by removing the message within ten minutes of sending it."

Instagram and WhatsApp, both of which are owned by Facebook, already include the option to delete messages after sending them, which makes them disappear for both sender and recipient.

Messenger currently only has a very limited version of the delete feature, which only removes a message from the feed of the person who deleted them.

Earlier this year it was revealed that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had the ability to secretly delete messages sent in private conversations.

The feature was reportedly introduced in the wake of the Sony Pictures hack in 2014, which saw the personal information of senior Sony executives compromised.

"After Sony Pictures' emails were hacked in 2014 we made a number of changes to protect our executives' communications," Facebook said at the time.

"These included limiting the retention period for Mark's messages in Messenger. We did so in full compliance with our legal obligations to preserve messages."

Rumours the social network is working on rolling this feature out to all its users intensified last month, when a prototype of the unsend feature was spotted by Jane Wong, who shared screenshots of the feature on Twitter.