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How to turn off read on whatsapp


How to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp

(Image credit: Future)

Whether privacy is your thing or you'd simply prefer to reply to messages at your own pace, knowing how to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp will let you be more incognito when using this popular messaging app.

WhatsApp is found on most iOS and Android smartphones these days, offering an easy way to chat with practically anyone worldwide. One downside of its myriad features, though, is that it can be hard to avoid contacts without them getting offended if we don't fancy replying right away.

Thankfully, however, it's easy to disable read receipts on WhatsApp, allowing you to read your messages without your contacts knowing you've seen them. A caveat is that it's only possible to disable read receipts for one-on-one chats — group chats are exempt from this feature. It's also worth noting that if you disable read receipts, you will also not be able to see read receipts for your contacts.

Want to know how to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp? Our guide below has all the answers.

How to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp: Android

1. Open WhatsApp and tap the three dots in the top-right, then tap Settings.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

2. Now, tap Account, then tap Privacy.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

3. To turn read receipts off, tap the toggle by Read receipts to deselect it.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

How to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp: iOS

1. Open WhatsApp then tap Settings in the bottom-right corner, then tap Account.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

2. Tap Privacy, then simply tap the toggle by Read Receipts to turn them off.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

And that's all there is to it. Now you know how to turn off read receipts on WhatsApp, you may want to know how to move WhatsApp messages from Android to iOS, how to message yourself on WhatsApp, how to create a WhatsApp avatar, how to use WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop, or how to send disappearing photos and videos in WhatsApp. If you're after tips on discovering your smartphone's hidden features, we've got you covered. Android users can start with how to translate any text on Android while iPhone users can get cracking with how to adjust your iPhone camera's brightness on the fly.

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Dale Fox is a freelance journalist based in the UK. He's been a tech nerd ever since childhood, when he used the money from his first job as a paperboy to buy a subscription to GamesMaster magazine. Dale was previously a presenter and editor in China, where he also worked as a copywriter for OnePlus at its Shenzhen HQ.  

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How to Secretly Read a WhatsApp Without the Sender Knowing

Home / How-To / Phone How-To

How-To

Stop WhatsApp reporting read receipts until you're ready to reply to your messages

By Marie Black

Editorial Director, Tech Advisor SEP 29, 2022 3:47 pm BST

WhatsApp makes it far too easy to tell when someone has read your message. It’s handy when you are the sender of the message, but less welcome when it’s the other way around. You can’t hide under the duvet and pretend it didn’t happen. The sender knows you’ve seen their message and that you haven’t replied.

WhatsApp messages are just one of many modern intrusions in this digital age that do not take into account what we’re doing or how we’re feeling when they arrive on our phones. Sometimes you might want a chance to think about what to say before replying, yet not appear rude by not doing so immediately.

But that’s difficult unless you can stop WhatsApp from telling the sender you’ve opened the app and read their message.

How does someone know when you’ve read their message on WhatsApp? The most obvious way is through the tick symbols that are displayed at the end of every WhatsApp message: one grey tick is sent; two grey ticks is delivered; two blue ticks is read.

To make matters worse, you can select any message and tap the three dots icon, followed by Info, to see the exact time the message was delivered and when it was read.

And then there’s Last seen: even if you get around the tick system and the timing issues, can you really explain being online 10 minutes ago and not having seen the message sent to you an hour ago?

Here’s how to get around some of those problems.

How to turn off WhatsApp read receipts

You can get around WhatsApp’s tick system the official way or the sneaky way.

The official way is best if you don’t want anyone ever knowing when you’ve read their messages, but you’ll need to accept that you also won’t be able to tell when they’ve read your messages.

The sneaky way is best if you’re wanting to achieve this on an ad hoc basis – perhaps it’s just the one person you’re avoiding, rather than the whole world.

The official way to disable WhatsApp read receipts

Launch WhatsApp, tap the three dots icon at the top right, then choose Settings.

Select Account > Privacy. Scroll down to and toggle off the option for Read receipts.

Note that this does not apply to group messages, though it is less obvious when you have read a message in these conversations because the two ticks won’t turn blue until everyone has seen the message. You can still check who has read messages you have sent within group conversations by selecting the message, tapping the three dots icon and choosing Info.

The sneaky way to get around WhatsApp read receipts

There are various ways to read WhatsApp messages without the app realising you have read them. Most of these are made possible by you never opening the app in the first place.

Here are some places you can read WhatsApp messages without opening them:

  • In notification previews – at the top of your screen, in your notification menu, and even on your lock screen
  • In the WhatsApp home screen widget
  • On a connected smartwatch or fitness tracker that supports WhatsApp notifications
  • While using your phone in Aeroplane mode – but only for as long as it stays offline

You can turn on high-priority notifications in Settings > Notifications. This will make the appear at the top of your screen when they arrive, and you can read them and then swipe them away without ever opening them.

Lock screen notifications are also possible when you go to Settings > Notifications and look for this option under Messages.

Blocking someone is a last resort, especially if you want to remain friends. You can achieve this by opening the conversation thread, tapping the three dots at the top and choosing More > Block. Don’t forget to unblock them later if you do go down this path.

For as long as they remain blocked they won’t know whether you’ve read their message, but there will be other clues to the fact they are blocked: your profile picture and status will disappear, none of their messages will appear to be delivered, and they won’t be able to call you.

The following ‘tips’ will not allow you to read WhatsApp messages without being seen:

  • Marking messages as unread
  • Deleting WhatsApp messages after you have read them (this isn’t Inspector Gadget)

How to turn off Last Seen

It’s no good turning off read receipts if your message sender can see that you’ve been on WhatsApp and haven’t bothered to read their message. In fact, it’s worse.

As with read receipts, this works both ways: you can’t see when they were last online if you don’t let them see when you were.

Launch WhatsApp, tap the three dots at the top right of the screen and choose Settings. 

Select Account > Privacy, then select Last seen.

You can then choose who should see when you were last online: everyone, no-one or only your contacts.

It’s also possible now to control who can see whether you’re online or not in WhatsApp.

  • How to use WhatsApp on a computer
  • Most common WhatsApp scams

Author: Marie Black, Editorial Director

Marie is Editorial Director at Foundry. A Journalism graduate from the London College of Printing, she's worked in tech media for more than 17 years, managing our EMEA and LatAm editorial teams and leading on content strategy through Foundry's transition from print, to digital, to online - and beyond.

Fix WhatsApp media download problems

Fix WhatsApp media download problems

Summary

Common problems with uploading or sending photos, videos, and voice messages may include the following:

  • You are having connection problems.
  • The time and date on your phone are not set correctly.
  • There are problems with your SD card:
    • There is not enough free space on the SD card.
    • The SD card is installed in read-only mode.
    • The SD card is corrupted.

Read more

Please make sure that your phone has an active Internet connection with a good signal. To check this, we recommend downloading any Internet page. If you're sure your phone is connected (try connecting to different Wi-Fi and/or 4G hotspots), keep reading. nine0005

Make sure the date and time are set correctly. If your phone has the wrong date, you won't be able to connect to the WhatsApp servers to download your media files. Find out how to set the date correctly here.

Sometimes WhatsApp may have problems saving files to your SD card. Try the following troubleshooting steps:

  1. Make sure you have enough space on your SD card. If your SD card is full, WhatsApp won't be able to save anything. Free up space by deleting unnecessary files. nine0008
  2. Make sure the SD card is not installed in read-only mode. Try saving a non-Whatsapp file to your SD card. If the file is saved, there is no read-only mode and WhatsApp Messenger will be able to save the file to it. If you can't save anything, your card is most likely installed in read-only mode. You will need to change this: see the user manual for instructions.
  3. If there is enough free space and you can save files to your SD card but still cannot download files from WhatsApp, you may need to delete WhatsApp data from your SD card:
    IMPORTANT: This operation may delete ALL message history backups and downloaded files.
    • Now it would be a good idea to backup your WhatsApp data. To back up your WhatsApp data, copy the "WhatsApp" folder from your SD card to your computer.
    • Open the SD card folder on your computer and delete the "WhatsApp" folder. Now all your media files from WhatsApp are deleted. WhatsApp will still open and your chats will still be there, but the media files (photo, video, audio) will no longer be there. nine0008
    • Restart the phone.
    • WhatsApp should now save downloaded files.
  4. Are you still reading? Remember point 2 where you checked to see if the SD card was set to read-only? If you were unable to save files to it, then your SD card may be damaged. In this case, you may need to format your SD card. This involves erasing data from the SD card and deleting it:
    IMPORTANT: This action may delete ALL data from your SD card. nine0030
  5. Once you format your SD card, you can't get that data back.
  6. If possible, back up everything on your SD card. One way to do this is to insert an SD card into a computer with an SD card reader and copy the files.
  7. On your Android go to Settings > Storage .
  8. If present, press Clear memory card .
  9. Select Format SD card or Erase SD card .
  10. Restart your phone.

If none of these methods work, there may be a problem with your SD card. In this case, you will have to buy a new SD card to save/send files.

Good Luck
WhatsApp Support

download whatsapp

How to turn on and off WhatsApp read receipts

Tired of what people know when you read their message? Here's how to disable read receipts.

Want to know how to enable and disable WhatsApp read receipts? Many WhatsApp users never mess with the app's settings, but you can pretty much customize it, including choosing whether to send read receipts or not. Here's what you need to know...

What is a WhatsApp read receipt?

WhatsApp read receipts are no different from other apps, including Apple Messages for iPhone. A read receipt simply sends a WhatsApp text message to the sender that you receive when you have actually read their message.

Read receipt can save you the annoyance when the sender sends additional texts saying: "Hey, did you get my previous message?"

  • Save

What do WhatsApp read receipts look like?

WhatsApp uses a checkmark system for read receipts. Depending on the number and color of the checkmarks, you can tell if the message has been delivered or read. Here's what the ticks mean:

One checkmark: This means that the WhatsApp message you sent was successfully sent from your device. If you see a single check mark next to your message for quite some time, it may mean that the recipient's phone is switched off and cannot receive messages at that time. nine0005

Double checkmark: A double checkmark indicates that the message you sent was successfully received by the recipient's phone. This means that the message was successfully sent from your phone and successfully delivered to the recipient's phone.

Double blue checkmark: When double checkmarks next to a message turn blue, the recipient has read the message.

Read receipts and WhatsApp group chats

Read receipts are available both for messages sent to one person and for group messages. However, while you can turn off read receipts for messages sent to individual recipients, you cannot turn off read receipts for group chats. nine0005

The reason for this is likely that WhatsApp considers read receipts to be a valuable part of group chats, which let all recipients know when a message has been read, and thus all members of the group are aware of the conversation.

  • Save

How to enable WhatsApp read receipts

WhatsApp read receipts are enabled by default. However, if you've disabled them and want to re-enable them, follow these steps:0005

  1. Open the WhatsApp application.
  2. Tap the Settings icon on the app's bottom toolbar.
  3. On the settings screen, tap Account.
  4. On the Account screen, tap Privacy.
  5. On the Privacy screen, tap to toggle the Read Receipts switch to the On position. (white).

How to turn off WhatsApp read receipts

If you want to disable read receipts, WhatsApp makes it very easy to do so. Like this:

  1. Open the WhatsApp application.
  2. Tap the Settings icon on the app's bottom toolbar.
  3. On the settings screen, tap Account.
  4. On the Account screen, tap Privacy.
  5. On the Privacy screen, tap to toggle the Read Receipts switch to the OFF (green) position. nine0038

Please note that if you turn off read receipts on WhatsApp, you will not be able to receive read receipts for your messages. This means you can't see when people are reading your messages, even if they have read receipts turned on.

And keep in mind, regardless of your read receipt settings, read receipts are always shown in group chats.

And check:

  • How to turn iPhone read receipts on and off
  • iPhone Legacy contacts: how to use your digital heritage
  • How to download HBO Max videos (movies and TV shows)
  • Does Apple have a metaverse?
  • Android AirTag Tracker: How to find AirTags using Android
  • Where is the AirPods widget on iPhone?
  • What are Limited Edition AirPods?
  • What will Apple release in 2022?
  • What does "i" mean in iOS?
  • Why do TVs no longer have a center stand?
  • How to turn CAPS LOCK on and off on iPhone
  • WhatsApp Reactions: How to add WhatsApp reactions to messages!

  • Save