How To Deactivate The Read Receipt For Individual Contacts In iMessage

It was always possible to deactivate read receipts for all contacts in Apple’s iMessage and other Messenger apps like WhatsApp. The read receipts notify the chat partner, when a message has been delivered and read. For a long time, you could not turn off the read receipt for individual contacts in iMessage. Fortunately Apple changed that. We will show you how this works below.

Let’s assume you want to let a colleague know that you have read a message, but not a friend or acquaintance. If you are not answering instantly, you may irritate the friend. Then you can deactivate the read receipt for specific contacts.

• First go to the iMessage app and open a chat that you want to turn off the read receipt for.

• Then tap the information icon (the circled “i“) in the right top corner. There are some details about the contact, as well as some more options on this screen. One option is “Send Read Receipts“. By tapping the button, you can deactivate this feature for this contact.

• Now you can read iMessages without feeling the pressure to respond instantly, because your chat partner can no longer see the read status.  

Do you want to deactivate this feature for all your contacts?

We show you how to do it in our article “How to Turn off Read Receipts in iMessage on iPhone”.

If you are in possession of an iPhone 6s or iPhone 7, there is a trick that will help you to use the 3D Touch. A feature of these iPhones is that you can read your iMessages without deactivating the read receipts. Read more…