No matter how much you change the keyboard, no matter how much you check what you type, there is no way to avoid making mistakes when writing a message and more when communication is a bit fast. And then when we review, we realize the nonsense we’ve written.
So I recommend.
Allow editing the message
I know this is not a normal messaging application, but I think this will not be a problem for this team of developers who work miracles.
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Telegram, you have this option
this is quite possible to implement (will work only for users that are using Delta Chat of course)
the gist of the thing: you send a message saying it is an update of message X where X is the unique message’s ID.
Devs are no short of work, so in the meanwhile as a workaround you can just copy the message and send it fixed or just say the word you meant with an asterisk like: delta*
after all the feature is nice but no show stopper 
btw, I think you forgot to set a category to this topic?
Regards,
adb
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i added the category, thanks for the hint 
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so, in MUA it should look like revocation with a new version instead; nice!
though personally I ok to just send another message with correction, there much more needed things
I know the priorities , I am not in a hurry, but if I would like in the future, I really do not like the mess in the messages, poorly written messages, other rectifying messages, and so …
However, I started to think, because most messengers don’t have it,
I think for business people like me it could be confusing a message asking for one thing and then when you reread the message it says something else,
I think after we tackled instant onboarding and instant notifications, this is the last feature which is missing so we can compete with mainstream messengers. Many users expect this feature in a messenger.
It opens up some difficulties, e.g. how to signal to users whether messages can be edited or not; maybe we only offer it when guaranteed e2ee is available? But that it’s not possible with traditional email contacts can be a frustration in any case.
A philosophical note: editing messages is not needed as long as you have good relationships with everyone involved. Then you can just send a next message correcting typos. This has upsides I would say and increases social cohesion. But that it’s missing can also lead to diplomatic crises, e.g. messages sent to the wrong chat can be a big disruption for relationships or expose confidential information. So you could argue this feature also has security implications.
Also - is there an IETF standard about this? I think I saw one at some point, but couldn’t find it with a quick search.
really??? this is the last missing feature?? 
I was thinking it was integrated phone-like calls and video calls, sticker picker and sticker packs discovering, public groups and channels, and Whatsapp-like “stories” 
I am relieved then, whew!
everyone has a favourite feature that is the “last missing” feature for them until it’s implemented then they find the next one…
I think it makes sense to have the edit message feature, I’d also love to use it, mainly to correct typos.
Deleting (or more accurately asking to retract or delete) messages is a similar feature request we could add simultaneously.
to continue the philosophical part of the discussion, but maybe overthinking a bit:
In both cases (edit & delete) it would be morally right to somehow remind people that it is only asking the other peer/device to do it, technically they could still keep the message.
But on the other hand, if you want to argue about popularity, not telling the users might be the more practical choice, because other apps encourage users to think that deletion on a remote device is reliable and always works – so delta chat might appear less “safe” for being honest and upfront about the possible “false security”-illusion / wrong expectations.
The email message could just be a reply like: correction of "subject" / retraction of mesage, please ignore the previous message, if there is a standard for it supporting email clients would just update the existing message.
Or we’d need some fancy “is everyone in the group using only DeltaChat” check, which is difficult and not possible to make it 100% certain. While it could make sense to hide the option for sending emails to prevent email spam it could lead to the false implication that it would be fool proof even if everyone in the group uses DC, leading use in the false sense of security problem again.
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I personally don’t think DC necessarily needs to implement every one of today’s trends. Different technologies have different strengths and weaknesses, and client identities are often defined by the technologies from which they are built. Placing emphasis on needing to be exactly like every other client isn’t necessarily wise.
Support for revising past messages is a very hard sell to me. It really does not fit. It’s not a fit for email culturally, it’s not a fit for existing alongside non-deltachat users, and deletion in particular is simply technologically incompatible.
I would propose tackling the subject from different angles. Perhaps in multiple ways.
- Adaptive delayed send. Is the user mid conversation, or are they about to start one? This is rather low hanging fruit. The client can implement the conventional webmail “undo send” feature - in which the message is not sent for x seconds - but automatically swap over to instant send if there has been recent activity.
- I don’t know how the devs see the future of WebXDC, but I keep imagining how great it would be if WebXDC could be expanded to obviate certain kinds of popular chatbots. While there is no message editing in irc, it’s fairly common to address potentially confusing typos with a
s/tipo/typo/. A fairly common bot function is to replay the message to the chat with the search/replace applied. Simple and effective. What if WebXDC could render that correction within the DC client, no bot involved, no follow up message actually sent? The WebXDC serving this function is shared to the group chat- every DC user therein gets to see the correction rendered however the WebXDC may be allowed to render it. Non DC users see the human-written notation and understand it for what it is.- There are no delusions of false security.
- There is no need to devise some complicated backchatter solution that would invariably increase complexity and push DC further away from regular mail interoperability.
- Development time is spent on a generic and powerful WebXDC capability, rather than spent on trying to make the square peg go into the round hole.
- Broadly speaking, the UX (optionally) could relax its imitation of instant messengers and thereby steer users to slow down a bit. If a user finds that they make a lot of typos and heavily relies on editing in chats, maybe they’d appreciate an option to configure DC to feel more… like composing emails. Right here on this Discourse I am composing this longform reply- one longer message as opposed to many short ones. Taking my time to find the right words. Occasionally proofreading the markdown rendered message preview to the right. It’s a different psychological mindset.
we could show an edit icon on the message and display all known previous versions of the message in message-info and open that if the user clicks on the edit icon.
Then it would be good to edit typos, but it would be clearer that nothing is hidden.
For deletion: disappearing/ephemeral messages is also on a best effort basis and works fine for most use cases. So the feature wouldn’t need to be 100% secure to be useful. 
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Even multi attachments… 