Facebook is trialing a new feature that lets you schedule the deletion of your posts in advance.

A handful of users noticed the feature in the Facebook iOS app earlier this week, and we reached out to Facebook to seek clarification. A spokesperson said:

“We’re running a small pilot of a feature on Facebook for iOS that lets people schedule deletion of their posts in advance.”

Facebook is no stranger to new features, and the social networking giant regularly introduces fresh facets to the service on a restricted basis, to garner feedback and assess user reaction.

ScheduleFB 220×259 Facebook is testing a feature that lets you schedule the deletion of your posts in advanceBased on the screenshots we’ve seen, Facebook is letting users opt for anything from 1 hour to 7 days, after which the given status update will self-destruct and disappear from view.

It’s worth noting here that even though the message will disappear from your profile, it won’t be removed from Facebook’s servers immediately, as it can take up to 90 days to vanish from its offline backups and logs completely.

This isn’t Facebook’s first effort at ephemerality, as it recently introduced the new standalone messaging app Slingshot, which received an update earlier this week, as it happens.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see whether this latest feature gains traction and is rolled out more widely in the future.