Have you ever been scrolling through your Instagram notification feed and see that someone has read a message you sent, but they’re ignoring it? Such situations are both awkward and annoying.
That’s why users sometimes opt to turn off Instagram read receipts—so that others won’t be able to track the messages they have opened.
This article will explain why it might be a good idea for you to disable your read receipts and will provide you with step-by-step instructions so that you can easily do this.
It will also explain what turning off this feature means, giving you a better understanding of the process and its potential benefits.
Finally, it will provide some helpful tips to ensure that the feature is disabled correctly. Read on to learn more about how to turn off Instagram read receipts!
What are Read Receipts?
Read receipts are a form of notification within messaging apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. With read receipts enabled, users can see when their messages are viewed by their recipients.
Read receipts are often accompanied by other messaging indicators such as typing indicators that let a user know when their message has been delivered and seen by its intended recipient. By default, read receipts are turned on in most messaging applications.
However, users have the option to turn them off should they prefer to not have that information shared with other users. In this guide, we’ll explain how to disable them on Instagram and the implications of doing so.
How to Turn Off Read Receipts
Read receipts are the little grey ticks that appear next to messages on certain chat apps, including Instagram. This feature can be handy for telling you whether or not your message has been received, but it can also be intrusive. Fortunately, there is an easy way to turn off read receipts for Instagram.
In this guide, we’ll look at how to turn off read receipts for Instagram, and how to keep your message statuses private.
Android
For Android users, the process is slightly more complicated but still consists of a few easy steps. Here is the guidance you need to set up and turn off read receipts on Android:
- Open your Instagram app and select either ‘Settings’ from the main menu or find the three dots icon on your profile page and tap them.
- Under ‘Settings’, tap on ‘Notifications & Sounds’. If you are using a different version of Instagram than what is described here, choose General Settings > Notifications & Sounds from this options list.
- Scroll down to toggle on your Read Receipt feature (or off if automatic read receipts are already enabled).
- To finish turning off read receipts for every message you send, hit the toggle button next to ‘Show Activity Status’ to turn it off completely. Push this article’s toggle should be gray when it’s finished – indicating that it’s inactive!
iOS
If you have an iOS device, disabling Instagram stories read receipts is quite straightforward. To do so, follow the steps below:
- Open Instagram and tap your profile picture at the bottom right of the screen to open your profile page.
- Tap on the three-line menu in the top right-hand corner to open your settings menu.
- From there, scroll down until you find “Story Settings” and tap on it to drop down further options.
- At the very bottom of this page is a toggle option labeled “Show Status” — switch this toggle to off and confirm it by tapping “OK” when prompted by Instagram.
Disabling this feature here will disable story read receipts for all stories on both your current device as well as any other devices connected to your account — including both iOS and Android devices, so it’s important that you only proceed with disabling it if you are sure you want to do so!
Benefits of Turning Off Read Receipts
The first and main benefit of turning off Instagram read receipts is that it allows you to have some privacy. By disabling read receipts, you’re letting the person know that you value your privacy, and don’t want to let them know when/if you check their messages.
This also gives you peace of mind — as you won’t get anxious when someone starts asking if they’ve seen your message in one of your group conversations.
In addition to privacy, another benefit of turning off read receipts is that it makes it easier to manage messages. As mentioned earlier, if someone starts frequently checking their read receipts, this could be an indication that they are struggling with a certain conversation.
In these cases, it can be useful to turn off read receipts to avoid tension or uncomfortable moments between the participants in the conversation.
Turning off Instagram read receipts can also help save time and energy — which can be useful for people who have limited bandwidth or who need a break from social media notifications for a few hours at a time.
Additionally, turning off read receipts reduces distractions from notifications as users are less likely to get overwhelmed when they receive messages from multiple contacts at once or in rapid succession.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it is ultimately up to you whether or not you decide to turn on or off your read receipts.
Turning on read receipts can be a great way to show your friends that you are engaged and paying attention to their messages while turning them off can give you some much-needed peace and privacy.
Of course, if you have any unanswered questions about how to turn off Instagram read receipts, feel free to refer back to this guide anytime for more information.
