How to Disable “read Receipts” in the Most Popular Messaging Apps
Ignorance is bliss. There is no accountability. If you’re the type of person who likes to take their time replying to messages, you probably don’t want the pressure of read receipts hanging over your head.
Read receipts are an integral part of every popular messaging platform. When you (or someone else) reads the message, you get that double tick or timestamp. It’s nice to know that the message was delivered and read. But what if you are on the other side?
You can get out of this game by turning off read receipts on all popular messaging services. We will guide you through the steps below.
Note . Disabling read receipts works both ways. Once disabled, you will often not be able to see when your messages have been delivered and read.
Let’s start with the most popular messaging platform on the planet: go to Settings > Account > Privacy and turn off Read Receipts .
iMessage
On your iPhone, you can turn off read receipts for iMessage in the Settings app. Go to ” Settings ” > ” Messages ” and turn off the ” Read receipts ” option.
Google Messenger
On the Android side, the steps are slightly different. Open the Google Messenger app on your Android smartphone and tap the ” Menu ” button with three dots in the top right corner. Go to ” Settings ” > ” Chat Features ” and turn off the ” Send read receipts ” option.
LinkedIn allows you to disable both read receipts and the typing indicator, although the steps are different for the website and mobile apps.
On the website, click on your profile icon and go to Settings & Privacy . Go to ” Communication ” > ” Messaging” and click the ” Edit ” button next to the ” Read receipts and input indicators ” option. Here you can disable this feature.
On the mobile app, go to Profile > Settings > Communication > Messaging > Read receipts and input indicators and disable this feature.
Signal
In the Signal app, tap your profile icon , go to Settings > Privacy and turn off the Read Receipts option.
Microsoft Teams
Do you want your colleagues not to know exactly when you read a message in the Microsoft Teams app? Click your profile icon in the toolbar and go to ” Settings “. In the ” Privacy ” section, turn off the ” Read receipts ” feature.
What if there is no way to turn off read receipts? (Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram)
Not every popular messaging app supports this feature. Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram do not allow you to turn off read receipts.
But there’s a workaround you can use to read messages without alerting the sender – using Airplane Mode. Turn on airplane mode on your device, then open the app and read the message. As long as you are in airplane mode, the person will not know that you have read it.