Apple’s WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage – all three apps have the read receipt feature that notifies the sender when the recipient has read their message. Read receipts are an important part of communication through messaging applications. It allows users to understand whether their message has been seen by the recipient or not. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage support the read receipt feature by providing different ways to notify the sender that their message has been read. But if you want to keep things more private and not give the sender the freedom to know when you’ve read their message, you can turn off those read receipts at any time. For example, if you keep your read receipts on WhatsApp, a blue check mark will appear next to the message when the recipient has read it.
We’ve compiled a step-by-step guide on how to turn off read receipts on apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple iMessage.
To close read receipts on your WhatsApp, follow these steps.
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Open the WhatsApp app. Click on the three points icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Click on Settings.
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Once in Settings, click on Account> Privacy.
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An option called Read receipt can be found here. Turn it off to turn it off in individual chats. You can’t turn off read receipts for group chats.
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Disabling read receipts on iMessage requires a few more steps than WhatsApp.
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Head to the iMessage app on your iOS device.
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Go to Settings and press messages.
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An option called Send read receipts can be found here. Disable it to completely disable the ability.
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If you want to turn off read receipts for specific chats, go to that user’s chat and click on the user’s profile picture.
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To select Info icon and disable Send an acknowledgment option.
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In Facebook Messenger, unfortunately, there is no option to turn off read receipts. There is an option in the settings called Active On, which allows you to disable the Active Now banner attached to your name every time you log in. It also indicates when you were last online, and turning off this option will not allow your friends to see this information. This can be found by going to the Messenger application> by clicking on the profile icon> From Active “On”> Disable it. However, there is also a workaround to read a message without notifying the sender.
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After receiving a new message on Facebook Messenger, simply activate airplane mode from your phone Settings, which will disable internet and network connections on the device.
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You can then open Messenger and view the message without an Internet connection.
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When finished reading, close the app and drag it out of your app drawer.
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You can now turn off Airplane mode. This way, the sender won’t be notified that you’ve read their message until you open the app again.
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