With over two billion monthly active users, WhatsApp makers keep on releasing new updates and features to make their user’s journey convenient on the app. Read receipts in WhatsApp is one such feature. It came out in 2014. When this feature was introduced, it faced a lot of criticism from the people for violating their privacy.
While the concern was true, there are times when you just don’t want to reply to a message or even let the sender know about reading it due to whatever reason, these are the times when “read receipts on WhatsApp” appear to be an enemy. If you too are concerned about this thing, here’s the good news- you can disable read receipts off on WhatsApp. But what does that actually mean? Let us find out in this article!
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What are the Tick Marks in WhatsApp?
When texting on WhatsApp, you would have noticed the tick marks and how they differently appear when your messages are sent, delivered and read.
In individual chats, if you see a
- Single grey tick next to your message, this means- your text has been sent to the concerned person
- Double grey tick means- your text is delivered
- Double blue tick means- your text is read by the person
While in group chat,
- Single grey tick means- one of the people is yet to receive your message
- Double grey tick means- your message is delivered to all the members in the group
- Double blue tick means- your message is read by all the members
However, in case you don’t see the blue tick next to your messages for long, this means the person is either facing a network issue or is not using WhatsApp or they might have blocked you. But if you are sure, none of them is the reason, they might have disabled “Read receipts on WhatsApp”.
What are Read receipts?
Read receipts on WhatsApp is a feature that lets you hide or show the blue tick that appears next to your messages. When someone texts you on WhatsApp, they can easily know the time at which you received the message and when you read it. You can do this by long-pressing a message and tapping the “(i)” or info icon.
However, when you turn off read receipts on WhatsApp, you are basically hiding your message information like the delivery and read time. So, even if you have read the message, the sender won’t know about it as the double grey tick will never turn to a blue tick.
What happens when you turn off read receipts?
When you turn off the read receipts, it can impact individual chats, group chats, voice messages and story options in certain ways. Here’s how:
How does disabling read receipts impact individual chats?
When you send a message with your read receipts turned off, the sender won’t know if you have read their messages or not. Neither the read time will be available. However, it works both ways- you will also not be able to check whether your messages are being read or not. As in both cases, only a double grey tick will appear in the chat box. In simpler words, read receipts must be turned on from both sides to view the message read information.
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How do read receipts impact group chats?
When it comes to group chats, turning off read receipts do not have a major role to play in it. Whether your or others’ read receipts are off, you can still view the usual tick marks and message information. This means the blue tick will still appear when everyone in the group has read the message.
How do read receipts impact WhatsApp Status or Story?
When you turn off your read receipts and view someone’s story, they won’t know that you saw it. Cool thing? Now, you can view others’ stories without them knowing. However, here’s the drawback- with read receipts off, you will also not get to know who has viewed your story.
How do read receipts impact Voice messages?
Whether the read receipts are turned on or off, WhatsApp voice messages don’t really get affected by it. If you send a voice message to the person whose read receipts are off, you can still see the blue tick when they have seen the message and the play button will also turn to blue when they have listened to the voice message. You can also check the message info to view the time when they received and played the message.
How to turn off read receipts?
Now that you know, what happens when you turn off read receipts on WhatsApp, it’s time to know how to turn them off:
- Open WhatsApp on your phone. If you have an Andriod phone, click on the three-dot icon at the top and go to Settings. For iPhone users, Settings is at the bottom.
- Next, go to Account and then click on Privacy.
- Just below the Status option, you will see Read receipts. Toggle it off from there and you are done.
Note: If you turn off read receipts and viewed another’s story and then again turned on your read receipts before the story expires, that person will know that you have viewed their story.
Pro Tip- How to check if someone has read your message with disabled read receipts?
Although the motive behind disabling read receipts is to remain hidden from the person whose text you have read, there is a way to figure this out too- Voice messages. As mentioned above, voice messages remain unaware of read receipts turned on or off. So, you can send a quick two seconds voice note to check if your messages are being read or not.
WhatsApp Latest Feature Update 2024- Meta AI
The latest feature addition to WhatsApp is the Meta AI chat. You can find this option on your WhatsApp chat screen. It is a small, blue-colored round icon. On Android phones, it is available at the bottom-right corner. Wondering what this option is?
Well, the Meta AI chat is an AI-powered chat box that can answer your questions and even generate images and GIF for you. All you need is to put your queries in the chat box. This new feature is getting appreciation from users worldwide.
Apart from WhatsApp, this feature has also been added to other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. So, go ahead, try the Meta AI, ask questions and have some additional fun using these social media apps.
Final Thoughts
So, that was all about “read receipts on WhatsApp”. On days, when you would like to open WhatsApp without others knowing, you can turn it off. However, enabling or disabling the read receipts is totally your choice. Hopefully, the above mentioned information would help you find what you are looking for. Do you have anything else to add? Drop it in the comments section below.
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Surbhi Verma
Engineer by Degree, Writer by Profession. I have tried my hands on different genre of writing only to end up finding technology to be my forte.