Read Receipts on iPhone: What They Are and Why You Might Want Them Off
Read receipts are the “Read” timestamp that appears under your message after the recipient opens it. On an iPhone, this only applies to iMessage, the blue-bubble conversations. SMS texts (green bubbles) show “Delivered” at most, never “Read.”
That distinction matters. If someone says they never saw your text but it shows “Delivered,” that is normal SMS behavior. If it shows “Read,” you are in an iMessage thread and their read receipts are turned on.
There are two ways to control this. You can kill read receipts for everyone at once, or flip the toggle inside a single conversation so only that one person stays in the dark. Both take under a minute.
How to Turn Off Read Receipts for Everyone
This is the global switch. Once it is off, nobody you message will see when you have read their messages.
- Open Settings on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap Apps, then tap Messages. (On iOS 17 and earlier, Messages appears directly in the Settings list, with no Apps layer.)
- Find the toggle labeled Send Read Receipts and turn it off.
That is the whole process. The setting takes effect immediately, no restart required.
One thing worth knowing: turning this off is not retroactive. Messages you already read before disabling the toggle already show “Read” on the other person’s screen. You cannot undo that.
How to Turn Off Read Receipts for Just One Person
Apple added per-contact read receipt control in iOS 10, and it still works the same way. The toggle lives inside the conversation itself, not in Settings.
- Open the Messages app and go to that person’s thread.
- Tap their name or contact photo at the top of the screen.
- A small panel drops down with icons for call, FaceTime, and more. Tap the info icon (the lowercase i in a circle).
- You will see a toggle for Send Read Receipts. Turn it off.
This overrides your global setting for that specific conversation. So if read receipts are on globally, you can carve out exceptions for individual contacts this way. You can also do the reverse: keep them off globally but turn them on for one person you actually want to be transparent with.
The per-contact toggle only works in iMessage threads. If the conversation is SMS (green bubbles), the toggle will not appear.
What the Other Person Actually Sees
When you turn off read receipts, your messages still show as “Delivered” on their end after your iPhone receives them. The “Read” status simply never arrives.
“Delivered” means the message reached your device. It does not confirm you saw it. That ambiguity is exactly what most people are after.
The other person does not get a notification that you changed your settings. There is no alert, no banner, no indication that anything changed. They will just stop seeing “Read” under their messages going forward.
Seeing Their Read Receipts Does Not Depend on Yours
This is where people get confused. Whether you see someone else’s “Read” receipt depends entirely on their settings, not yours.
If they have read receipts turned on, you will see “Read” when they open your message. If they have it off, you will only see “Delivered.” Your own settings have zero effect on what you see from them.
So turning yours off does not make their receipts disappear from your screen. Both sides control their own outgoing read confirmations independently.
Typing Indicators Are a Separate Setting
The three-dot bubble that shows someone is typing is not connected to read receipts. Disabling Send Read Receipts does not hide your typing activity.
There is no toggle in iOS to hide typing indicators from the other person. The only way to prevent someone from seeing you type is to draft your reply in the Notes app and paste it into Messages when you are ready to send.
What About WhatsApp?
WhatsApp read receipts work differently. The blue double-check marks serve the same purpose as “Read” in iMessage, but the setting to disable them sits inside WhatsApp’s own privacy controls.
Go to WhatsApp > Settings > Privacy > Read Receipts and toggle it off. The same limitation applies: you also lose the ability to see when others have read your messages. It cuts both ways on WhatsApp, just like it does on iMessage when both sides have it disabled.
For a deeper look at what else is buried in iOS privacy and hidden controls, the iPhone hidden menus guide covers features most users never find.
iMessage vs. SMS: A Quick Reality Check
Read receipts, the per-contact toggle, and the typing indicator all require iMessage. That means both you and the recipient need an iPhone (or Mac/iPad) with iMessage enabled, and both devices need an internet connection.
If the bubble is green, you are sending a plain SMS. Your carrier delivers it, Apple is not in the loop, and there is no read receipt system at play. “Delivered” appears once the carrier confirms the handset received the message, and that is all you get.
This is also relevant when messaging someone who has switched from iPhone to Android. Their responses will turn green, and any read receipts you were used to seeing will stop appearing, not because they changed their settings, but because the conversation dropped out of iMessage entirely.
If you want to dig into more hidden iOS behavior, the iOS hidden features breakdown is worth a read. And for other iPhone how-to tips in the same vein, the guide on how to screen record on iPhone with sound walks through another commonly missed setting.
FAQ
Yes. Open that person’s conversation in Messages, tap their name at the top, hit the info icon, and toggle off Send Read Receipts. This only affects that thread and requires an active iMessage connection (blue bubbles).
No. Read receipts are an iMessage feature. SMS conversations (green bubbles) only show “Delivered” once your carrier confirms the message reached the recipient’s device. The “Read” status never appears in SMS threads, regardless of your settings.
No. Apple does not send any notification when you change the setting. From their perspective, your messages will just stop showing “Read” going forward. They have no way to tell whether you read the message or simply changed a setting.
“Delivered” means the message reached the recipient’s device. “Read” means they opened the conversation after the message arrived. You only see “Read” if the recipient has Send Read Receipts turned on in their own settings.
No. The Send Read Receipts toggle and typing indicators are independent. Turning off read receipts does not affect whether the other person can see that you are typing. iOS has no dedicated toggle to hide the typing bubble.
The most likely reason is that the recipient has Send Read Receipts turned off globally or specifically for your conversation. Another possibility: they previewed the message from the lock screen or notification banner, which does not always mark it as read inside the app.
