Ever felt pressurized to reply to a WhatsApp that you’ve read – given that the sender knows full well you’ve read their message because of the app’s baked-in read receipt feature? Yep, that little blue tick certainly gives the game away and there’s no hiding that you’ve received and read the sender’s text.
Similarly, you may wish to read a WhatsApp and reply to it later, or never reply to it at all! Argh…life was so much easier when SMS dominated text messaging.
Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you can disable WhatsApp’s read receipt feature in just a few easy steps.
How to disable read receipts in WhatsApp for Android
You can see the status of each WhatsApp by its check mark. A single grey check mark next to the message means it’s sent; double grey ticks means it was delivered to the recipient’s phone, and when the check marks turn blue you’ll know that the recipient has read your message.
If you don’t want read receipts, here’s how you can turn them off:
1. Open WhatsApp from the app drawer or home screen.
2. Select the action overflow menu (three vertical dots on the top right corner).
3. Select Settings.
4. Go to Accounts.
5. Hit Privacy.
6. Toggle read receipts to off.
That’s all there is to it! Note that once you turn off read receipts, you won’t be able to see when others have read your messages. Turning off the feature disables the service entirely, so you’ll be running blind on messages read too. Also, there’s no way to turn off read receipts in group chats or play receipts for voice messages.