Overview
On WhatsApp, a customer can delete a message for everyone or send view-once media (a photo or video that disappears after being opened). By default, those actions would also erase or hide the content from your support view — leaving your team with an incomplete history.
Conversa Labs solves this with three per-inbox options (all on by default) that guarantee an audit trail and privacy under your control:
- Preserve deleted messages — keeps a deleted message intact in the panel, under a "deleted message" banner.
- Allow message deletion — decides whether agents can delete messages from the conversation.
- Capture view-once — captures and renders view-once media in the panel.
The options apply to the WhatsApp inbox and are adjusted in Inbox Settings.
Prerequisites
- Be an administrator to change the options in Inbox Settings.
- Have a connected WhatsApp inbox (delete-for-everyone and view-once are WhatsApp features).
- Agents only see the resulting behavior — the configuration is done by the administrator.
Step by step
Administrator — adjust the three options
- Go to Settings → Inboxes and select the WhatsApp inbox.
- Open the Settings tab (inbox options).
- Find the three privacy and audit switches:
- Preserve deleted messages
- Allow message deletion
- Capture view-once
- Turn each one on or off according to your policy and click Save. All ship on — keeping them that way reproduces the platform's default behavior.
Agent — how the result appears
- Preserved deleted message: when the customer deletes a message for everyone, the bubble keeps its original content and attachments, showing a "deleted message" banner. You still have the full record for audit.
- Captured view-once media: a view-once photo or video is rendered normally in the conversation, instead of the "available on the phone only" notice.
Settings & options
| Option | On (default) | Off |
|---|---|---|
Preserve deleted messages (preserve_deleted_messages) |
A delete-for-everyone message stays intact in the panel (content + attachments) under an audit banner ("deleted message"). | The content is hidden — only a marker that the message was deleted remains (WhatsApp parity). |
Allow message deletion (allow_message_deletion) |
Agents can delete messages from the conversation. | The action is removed from the bubble and the API rejects with 403. |
Capture view-once (capture_view_once) |
Incoming view-once media is captured and rendered in the panel. | Keeps the "available on the phone only" placeholder — the media is not rendered. |
The three options are independent and defined per inbox. Adjust each inbox according to the channel's sensitivity.
Use cases
- Audit and compliance: preserving deleted messages ensures no customer can remove evidence of a negotiation or complaint from the support history.
- Stricter privacy policy: turning off view-once capture to respect the customer's ephemeral intent in sensitive inboxes.
- Operational control: turning off message deletion so agents cannot remove records from the conversation.
Tips, limits and best practices
- Safe default: all options ship on — you only need to change them to restrict.
- Exclusive to WhatsApp (delete-for-everyone and view-once). Other channels do not have these actions.
- Preserve and capture increase the audit trail; turning them off moves the behavior closer to native WhatsApp (ephemeral). Choose according to your policy.
- Turning off Allow message deletion only affects the agents' action in the panel; it does not change what the customer does on their own phone.
Troubleshooting
- A deleted message's content is gone: the Preserve deleted messages option is off on that inbox — turn it on in Inbox Settings.
- Agent gets a 403 error when deleting: the Allow message deletion option is off — that is the expected behavior; turn it on to allow the action.
- View-once media shows as "available on the phone only": the Capture view-once option is off on that inbox — turn it on to render the media.
- I do not see the options: you must be an administrator and the inbox must be WhatsApp.
See also
- Forward messages (article "Forward messages").
- Attachments, voice, emoji and reactions.