Damien Wilde / Android Authority
TL;DR
- If you wanted to read Instagram messages without letting anyone know, you previously had to use a workaround.
- Meta’s CEO has confirmed that users now have the ability to turn off read receipts.
When you send a direct message on the popular iOS and Android app Instagram, a read receipt will generate, informing you if the recipient saw your message. While this can be helpful for the sender, it can be annoying for the person who wants to read their messages privately. If you’re one of those people who wants to ignore conversations in peace, the app will soon let you disable read receipts.
There are a variety of reasons why someone might want to turn off read receipts. For example, you may want to read a message without feeling pressured to respond right away. Or you may feel that read receipts are an invasion of your privacy.
Whatever your reason, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says you’ll be able to disable the feature soon. On the Meta Channel, Zuckerberg said today that the team is currently testing turning off read receipts in Instagram DMs.
Unfortunately, Zuckerberg doesn’t offer a release window for when that ability will come. So we’ll just have to wait patiently until that update arrives.
Although there was never an official way to disable read receipts in Instagram DMs, there was at least one workaround. To keep from triggering the feature, you could turn on Airplane mode and turn off Wi-Fi. But this method also involved logging out, which can be a pain.
