A chat participant might want to retract a message which they've already sent out, for example if they've mistakenly sent it to the wrong recipient or groupchat.
Due to the federated and extensible nature of XMPP it's not possible to remove a message with full certainty and a retraction can only be considered an unenforceable request for such removal. Clients which don't support message retraction are not obligated to enforce the request and people could have seen or copied the message contents already.
If a client implements message retractions, it MUST specify the 'urn:xmpp:message-retract:1' feature in its service discovery information features as specified in Service Discovery (XEP-0030) [1] and the Entity Capabilities profile specified in Entity Capabilities (XEP-0115) [2].
Similarly, a server that is aware of message retractions and will therefore ensure that they're archived for later retrieval (e.g.via Message Archive Management (XEP-0313) [3]), MUST also advertise the 'urn:xmpp:message-retract:1' feature.
<iq type='get'
from='romeo@montague.example/orchard'
to='juliet@capulet.example/balcony'
id='info1'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>
<iq type='result'
to='romeo@montague.example/orchard'
from='juliet@capulet.example/balcony'
id='info1'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
...
<feature var='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1'/>
...
</query>
</iq>Consider a situation where a user sends a message to the wrong recipient:
<message type='chat' to='lord@capulet.example' id='wrong-recipient-1'> <body>Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?</body> </message>
The author notices that the message was sent to the wrong recipient and indicates to their client that it should be retracted.
The client sends out a retraction message and uses the 'id' attribute of the <message> element in the original message to indicate that it should be removed.
In the case of a group chat message, for example Multi-User Chat (XEP-0045) [4], instead of the origin ID, the XEP-0359 stanza ID that was assigned by the group chat SHOULD be used.
<message type='chat' to='lord@capulet.example' id='retract-message-1'> <retract id="wrong-recipient-1" xmlns='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1'/> <fallback xmlns="urn:xmpp:fallback:0" for='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1'/> <body>/me retracted a previous message, but it's unsupported by your client.</body> <store xmlns="urn:xmpp:hints"/> </message>
It's RECOMMENDED that you include a Fallback Indication (XEP-0428) [5] tag with fallback text in the <body/>, so that servers will archive the retraction and non-supporting clients can still indicate that there was an intent to retract. Additionally, you MAY include a Message Processing Hints (XEP-0334) [6] <store/> hint, to indicate that the stanza needs to be archived.
It might be desirable to remove the retracted message from a Message Archive Management (XEP-0313) [3] service, while still recording the fact that it once existed, in order to aid clients in synchronizing their archives. To do this, the archiving service MAY replace the retracted message contents with a 'tombstone'.
A service which supports tombstones MUST advertise the 'urn:xmpp:message-retract:1#tombstone' feature in its Service Discovery responses.
<iq type='get'
from='romeo@montague.example/orchard'
to='romeo@montague.example'
id='info1'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'/>
</iq>
<iq type='result'
to='romeo@montague.example/orchard'
from='romeo@montague.example'
id='info1'>
<query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
...
<feature var='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1#tombstone'/>
...
</query>
</iq>When replacing the original message with a tombstone, the original contents (i.e. the <body/> and any related elements which might leak information about the original message) get replaced with a <retracted/> element which MUST include an 'id' attribute that's set to the value of the retraction's <message/> element's 'id' attribute, so that clients can match the tombstone to the retraction (which MUST also be stored in the archive).
The <retracted/> element SHOULD also include a 'stamp' attribute indicating the time at which the retraction took place.
As with other XEP-0313 archived messages, the Delayed Delivery (XEP-0203) [7] <delay/> element is used to indicate when the original message was received.
<message id='aeb213' to='lord@capulet.example/chamber'>
<result xmlns='urn:xmpp:mam:2' queryid='f27' id='stanza-id-1'>
<forwarded xmlns='urn:xmpp:forward:0'>
<delay xmlns='urn:xmpp:delay' stamp='2019-09-20T23:08:25Z'/>
<message type='groupchat' from='romeo@montague.example' to='lord@capulet.example' id='wrong-recipient-1'>
<retracted stamp='2019-09-20T23:09:32Z' xmlns='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1' id='retract-message-1'/>
</message>
</forwarded>
</result>
</message>A receiving client can choose to remove the retracted message from whatever display is used for messages, from any stored history, or choose to display the fact that a message has been retracted in another way.
A MUC or other service that supports message retraction SHOULD prevent further distribution of the message by the service (e.g., by not replaying the message to new occupants joining the room, omitting the message from history archive requests where possible, or replacing the original message with a 'tombstone').
Some clients may have been offline while the retraction was issued. The archiving service therefore MUST store the retraction message, regardless of whether the original message is deleted or replaced with a tombstone. These clients will then become aware of the retraction as soon as they catch up with the archive.
A client MAY inform the user that a no-longer displayed message did previously exist and has been removed.
Supporting clients MUST set a unique 'id' on the <message> element in outgoing stanzas (as per Unique and Stable Stanza IDs (XEP-0359) [8]), to make them suitable for retraction.
The Sender MUST NOT send a retraction request for a message with non-messaging payloads. For example, a sender MUST NOT send a retraction for a roster item exchange request or a file transfer part.
A retraction (that's not part of a Message Moderation (XEP-0425) [9] operation) MUST only be processed when both the original message and the retraction request are received from the same bare-JID (in a one-on-one conversation) or full-JID (in a non-anonymous MUC from Multi-User Chat (XEP-0045) [4]).
When used in a semi-anonymous MUC, the recipient client MUST check that a message retraction was sent by the author of the retracted message by checking the occupant id from Anonymous unique occupant identifiers for MUCs (XEP-0421) [10].
For messages of type 'groupchat', the ID assigned to the stanza by the group chat itself must be used. This is discovered in a <stanza-id> element with a 'by' attribute that matches the bare JID of the group chat, as defined in Unique and Stable Stanza IDs (XEP-0359) [8].
If a group chat does not support Unique and Stable Stanza IDs (XEP-0359) [8], a client can still opt to include an <origin-id> element in the message stanza, which can be used to refer to the message in a retraction.
For other message types the sender should use the value of the 'id' attribute on the <message> element. See however the Security Considerations below.
There can never be a guarantee that a retracted message was never seen or otherwise distributed, and it is encouraged for clients and services when possible to inform users that no such guarantee exists.
If message retraction results in the complete removal of any record of the original message's body, for example to be replaced by a tombstone, then this could be used to hide messages that moderators might want to be notified of.
To prevent message spoofing, it's very important that the sender's JID or XEP-0421 occupant id of message retractions are checked (as explained in the Business Rules section).
Clients that don't support Unique and Stable Stanza IDs (XEP-0359) [8] (and therefore don't support Message Retraction (XEP-0424) [11]), are not guaranteed to have a unique 'id' attribute on their <message> elements. This means that when someone is using a supporting client, and attempts to retract a message from a different, non-supporting client, it might not be possible to uniquely indentify the message being retracted, as more than one message could have the same 'id' attribute.
To mitigate this, clients can do a Service Discovery (XEP-0030) [1] request to check if the other client supports XEP-0359, and if not, they can choose to not support retraction for messages from that client, or otherwise warn the client about this limitation. However, the other client might not be online to respond to a disco request, so this is not a foolproof method.
None.
The XMPP Registrar [12] includes 'urn:xmpp:message-retract:1' in its registry of protocol namespaces (see <https://xmpp.org/registrar/namespaces.html>).
If the protocol defined in this specification undergoes a revision that is not fully backwards-compatible with an older version, the XMPP Registrar shall increment the protocol version number found at the end of the XML namespaces defined herein, as described in Section 4 of XEP-0053.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<xs:schema
xmlns:xs='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'
targetNamespace='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1'
xmlns='urn:xmpp:message-retract:1'
elementFormDefault='qualified'>
<xs:element name='retract'>
<xs:attribute name='id' type='xs:string' use='required'/>
</xs:element>
<xs:element name='retracted'>
<xs:complexType>
<xs:simpleContent>
<xs:extension base='xs:string'>
<xs:attribute name='by' type='xs:string' use='optional'/>
<xs:attribute name='id' type='xs:string' use='required'/>
<xs:attribute name='stamp' type='xs:dateTime' use='optional'/>
</xs:extension>
</xs:simpleContent>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>
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Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to make use of the Specification without restriction, including without limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy, modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification. Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP Standards Foundation.
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This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which can be found at <https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/ipr-policy> or obtained by writing to XMPP Standards Foundation, P.O. Box 787, Parker, CO 80134 USA).
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The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 6120) and XMPP IM (RFC 6121) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.
The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.
Discussion on other xmpp.org discussion lists might also be appropriate; see <https://xmpp.org/community/> for a complete list.
Errata can be sent to <editor@xmpp.org>.
The following requirements keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".
1. XEP-0030: Service Discovery <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0030.html>.
2. XEP-0115: Entity Capabilities <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0115.html>.
3. XEP-0313: Message Archive Management <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html>.
4. XEP-0045: Multi-User Chat <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html>.
5. XEP-0428: Fallback Indication <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0428.html>.
6. XEP-0334: Message Processing Hints <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0334.html>.
7. XEP-0203: Delayed Delivery <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0203.html>.
8. XEP-0359: Unique and Stable Stanza IDs <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0359.html>.
9. XEP-0425: Message Moderation <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0425.html>.
10. XEP-0421: Anonymous unique occupant identifiers for MUCs <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0421.html>.
11. XEP-0424: Message Retraction <https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0424.html>.
12. The XMPP Registrar maintains a list of reserved protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of XMPP extension protocols approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation. For further information, see <https://xmpp.org/registrar/>.
Note: Older versions of this specification might be available at https://xmpp.org/extensions/attic/
Remove MUC moderation use-case which will go into a separate XEP
Fix the XEP title to be Message Retraction.
Use the term 'retraction' instead of 'deletion'. Added tombstone marker.
First draft.
@report{stout2015message-retract,
title = {Message Retraction},
author = {Stout, Lance and Brand, JC},
type = {XEP},
number = {0424},
version = {0.4.2},
institution = {XMPP Standards Foundation},
url = {https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0424.html},
date = {2015-07-07/2025-01-18},
}END