By default, read receipts are activated in WhatsApp, so everyone can see when you’ve read a message and vice versa. What exactly this function still means, how you can deactivate it and even bypass it, we explain to you here.
What are read receipts?
Under Messages, you will see a grey checkmark, two grey checkmarks or two blue checkmarks in WhatsApp. You can tell when your messages were sent, arrived at the recipient and read by the recipient. However, not everyone wants others to be able to see immediately when they have read their messages. Therefore you can simply switch off these read receipts.
What happens if I turn off read receipts?
If you turn off read receipts, your contacts can no longer see when you’ve read their messages. However, can you also will not see more of when your contacts have a message read by you. If you turn off read receipts, it only affects direct chats. Read confirmations in groups and playback confirmations for voice messages will still be activated. You cannot deactivate this either. This is how you can see who has already read your message in WhatsApp groups.
Bypass read receipt with widget or aeroplane mode
If you deactivate the read receipts, you can no longer see when a contact has read your messages. With a trick you can have the read receipts activated, read messages and still not send a read receipt:
Drag the WhatsApp widget to the home screen. It is installed by default if you have WhatsApp installed. If you read messages via the widget, the sender will not receive any blue ticks as a read receipt. However, the widget only shows text and no images.
