March 19, 2024

If I Send a Message on Kik and Delete, Will the Receiver See the Message?

We have received a few questions about Kik messenger over the past few weeks, the latest arrived yesterday and asked ‘If I send a message on Kik and delete it, will the receiver see the message? ’

Along with other questions along the same lines of what happens to messages once delivered, we thought it about time we put a page together to answer as many of them as we can.

Typical questions include ‘If I send a message on Kik and delete it, will the receiver see the message? ’, ‘If I delete Kik, do my messages get deleted? ’ and ‘If you block someone on Kik do all your messages disappear? ’

Kik is different from other chat apps in that it is merely a transmission medium. It sends messages to and from your phone and nothing else. All data is stored on your phone and not on Kik servers. This enhances security but comes with limitations. Kik users tend to prefer the anonymity of the app over the feature benefits of having data stored outside of their control.

Will a receiver see a deleted Kik message?

Once Kik shows the message to have been delivered, the recipient will see it in their message queue. Once the message has been delivered, there is no way of recalling it. Once you see that ‘D’ for Delivered, you’re out of luck. As far as I know, Kik has no way of recalling messages once they are forwarded on to the recipient.

The Kik system is fairly simple and doesn’t have the same features as WhatsApp. While messaging is good and fairly reliable, there aren’t the same levels of features as other chat apps as Kik servers are merely relays for your chats. In return, by using Kik, you have anonymity instead. When you sign up you select a username and can be anyone from anywhere.

If I delete Kik, do my messages get deleted?

If you delete the Kik app from your phone, your messages will also be deleted. Kik does not have the ability to save messages on its systems. All messaging, images and interactions are device to device so will all be deleted from your phone once you delete the Kik app.

Any messages you have sent and that have been delivered will be readable by the recipient regardless of what you do with your own account. Given the relay nature of Kik, those messages you sent will still be visible to the recipient until they time out of they run out of space. Kik has no power over them once delivered.

You can deactivate your Kik account instead of deleting it if you prefer. This puts it on hold until you’re ready to jump in again. It does not delete all your messages but puts your account to sleep.

If you do end up wanting to delete Kik, here is how to do it.

  1. Open the Kik app and select the Settings gear icon.
  2. Select Your Account.
  3. Select Reset Kik Messenger and confirm.
  4. Select Log Out within Kik.
  5. Uninstall the app from your phone.

If you don’t see the Log Out option within Your Account, you are using an older version of the app. Visit the Kik website to delete your account. Once you delete the apps, all of the messages are deleted along with it.

If you change your mind and want back in to Kik, all you need do is install the app again and use your old login details to reactivate. Your messages will still have been deleted and you will no longer have access to previous chats but you will soon be able to receive them once again.

If you do leave or rejoin Kik, don’t forget to tell people. Sudden silences that would normally be fine in real life take on a completely different meaning on social media!

If you block someone on Kik do all your messages disappear?

If you come across someone you would much rather not deal with on Kik, blocking is one of the ways you can deal with the situation. When you block someone on Kik, any message they have sent to you disappears and they are no longer able to contact you using that Kik account.

Any messages you have sent to them remain visible to them. So if you do have to block someone, all your messages, images or anything else will still be visible in their chat queue.

Kik is a neat app that offers privacy and a semblance of anonymity that other chat apps do not. While not without its own issues, considering it is free and stores no data on users, it’s no wonder it counts its users in the hundreds of millions.

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