Delete messages

A user can delete messages they sent in a DM or group chat. In a group chat, the super admin role can delete any message in the group.

Tip

Message deletion is not a security or privacy feature. It provides a best-effort way to remove messages from conversation UIs, but does not guarantee the message content is permanently erased.

How message deletion works

When a user deletes a message, a DeleteMessage content type containing the target message ID is sent to the conversation. Clients receiving this message validate the deletion request and filter the deleted message from queries.

When you query messages, the client automatically:

• Replaces deleted messages with a placeholder that indicates whether the sender or an admin deleted it
• Filters out the DeleteMessage content type from message lists

The deletion mechanism does NOT remove the original message from:

• Local databases
• The backend
• Backup systems

What cannot be deleted

Cannot be deleted	Reason
Membership changes and group updates	They are the group transcript
Leave requests	They are the group transcript
Reactions	They are deleted with their target
Read receipts	They have no content to remove
Actions and intents	They are not user-authored content
A deletion	Removing it would hide the original with no record
An unknown content type	The SDK does not silently drop unknown data

Delete a message

Platform	Method
Swift	conversation.deleteMessage(messageId:)
Kotlin	conversation.deleteMessage(messageId)
Browser, Node	Not available. These SDKs can receive and render deletions.

The call throws when the message is absent, the caller is not the sender or a super admin, the message is already deleted, or its type cannot be deleted.

Stream deletions

Platform	Method	Yields
Browser, Node	client.conversations.streamDeletedMessages()	Deleted message
Kotlin, Swift	client.conversations.streamMessageDeletions()	Deleted message

The deprecated Browser and Node streamMessageDeletions() method yields only the message ID.