WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple’s iMessage – All three apps have the read receipt feature that notifies the sender when the receiver has read their message. Read receipts are an important part of communication through messaging applications. It allows users to understand whether the recipient has seen your message or not. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage support the read receipt function using different ways of notifying the sender that their message has been read. But if you want to keep things more private and not allow the sender to have the freedom to know when they have read your message, you can disable these read receipts at any time. For example, if you keep your read receipts on WhatsApp, a blue mark appears next to the message when the recipient has read it.
We have compiled a step-by-step guide on how to disable read receipts in apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple iMessage.
How to deactivate read receipts in WhatsApp
To close the read receipts on your WhatsApp, follow these steps.
- Open the WhatsApp application. Click on the three points in the upper right corner of the screen. Click on Settings.
- Once in Settings, click on Account> Privacy.
- An option called Read receipt It can be found here. Please turn it off to turn it off for individual chats. You cannot disable read receipts for group chats.
How to disable read receipts in iMessage
Disabling read receipts in iMessage requires a few more steps than WhatsApp.
- Go to the iMessage application on your iOS device.
- To go Settings and touch Messages.
- An option called Send read receipts It can be found here. Please disable it to disable the capability completely.
- If you want to disable read receipts for specific chats, go to that user’s chat and click on the user’s profile photo.
- Please select the Info icon and disable Send reading receipt option.
How to disable read receipts on Facebook Messenger
In Facebook Messenger, unfortunately, there is no option to disable read receipts. There is an option in the settings called Active on, which helps to disable the Active now banner attached to your name every time you connect. It also shows the last time you were online, and turning this off will not allow your friends to see that information. This can be found by going in the Messenger app> clicking on the profile icon> From Active ‘On’> Toggle it on ‘Off.’ However, there is also a solution to read a message without the sender knowing.
- After receiving a new message on Facebook Messenger, activate Airplane Mode from the Settings, disable network and internet connections on the device.
- You can then open Messenger and view the message without an internet connection.
- Once you’re done reading, close the app and slide it out of the app drawer.
- Now you can deactivate the Airplane mode. This way, the sender will not be notified that they have read their message until they reopen the application.