When you get messages from someone you don’t know, it can be tempting to open them. However, knowing that they’ve read your message can put a lot of pressure on you to respond. Fortunately, there are workarounds to hide your reading history.
Read receipts are a common feature on many social networking platforms. They’re meant to notify the sender when you’ve opened their message. By default, Facebook and iMessage both have read receipts, as well as Snapchat and Instagram. If you want to turn off read receipts, you can use a third-party app or Chrome extension to do it. These methods aren’t foolproof, however. Nevertheless, they can help you reduce stress and keep from accidentally opening unwanted messages.
The best way to hide your reading history is to turn off Airplane mode. This will keep your messages unread when you’re not online. You’ll also be able to connect to the network again when you return.
Another good way to hide your reading history is to use a Facebook Unseen extension. Facebook users can download this application to their Chrome browser. Alternatively, there are workarounds for iOS and Android users.
Using Facebook Unseen can help you avoid receiving the standard “read receipt” for messages you’ve received from people you don’t know. It can also prevent you from delivering or typing receipts. As a bonus, you can even set up timers to automatically mark messages as read before you get a notification.
If you’re interested in a more comprehensive solution, consider using a browser extension. There are several available, but only one that lets you completely disable Facebook’s read receipts. For example, LifeHacker has an article on how to do it. But, if you’re not into extensions, you can still get rid of read receipts on the desktop by switching off the ‘Send Read Receipts’ setting.
While these methods aren’t a complete solution, they are a lot better than the alternatives. Especially if you’re dealing with creepy friends or a dating partner who insists on knowing when you’ve read a message.
Disabling read receipts on Facebook Messenger isn’t as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately, there’s no way to do it in the app. Instead, you’ll need to try out some of the workarounds. Keep in mind, though, that you may not always be able to hide your reading history. Also, it is important to remember that turning off read receipts will not prevent other people from getting notifications.
Other ways to get around this are to use a Facebook Messenger app extension, such as Disable Messages, which allows you to manually disable receipts for specific chats. Or you can try using a third-party application, such as Facebook Messenger Privacy. Whether you choose to go with the default option or another method, you’ll need to ensure you’re able to get a reply from the recipient. Regardless of how you do it, be sure to delete the message if you’re done.
If you’re still worried about getting a read receipt, you can turn off the Active On settings. This will hide your status icon when you’re online. In addition, you’ll be unable to see the blue notification on the Show Notifications widget. Hopefully, Facebook will fix this loophole in the next update.