How to Turn Off Instagram Read Receipts
You don’t have to feel obligated to respond to an Instagram DM right away just because the sender can see that you’ve read it. Here’s how you can avoid this pressure by turning off read receipts on Instagram.
How to Turn Off Read Receipts for a Specific Chat on Instagram
Instagram gives you the option to disable read receipts for specific chats, in case you prefer not to disable them for all chats. Here’s how to access it.
- In the Instagram app, head to your DMs.
- Open the conversation for which you want to turn off read receipts.
- Tap the person or group’s name at the top.
- Go to Privacy & safety and turn off the Read receipts toggle.
How to Turn Off Read Receipts for All Instagram Chats
To disable read receipts for all Instagram chats at once, you’ll need to access your privacy settings on Instagram.
To do this, follow these steps:
- Open the Instagram app and switch to the profile tab.
- Tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner to go to the Settings and activity page.
- Head to Messages and story replies > Show read receipts.
- Turn off the Read receipts toggle.
Keep in mind that disabling read receipts for all your Instagram chats won’t affect your read receipt preferences for individual chats. This means you can still choose to have read receipts on for certain chats, even if you’ve turned them off globally.
What Happens When You Disable Read Receipts on Instagram
Once you turn off read receipts for your Instagram chats, the other person won’t know if you’ve read their message or not. Essentially, you will be able to read your Instagram DMs without them being marked as seen.
This also means that you won’t be able to tell if they have seen your message or not. Instead of showing as “read”, all messages will only display as “sent” for both parties.
It’s important to note that disabling read receipts doesn’t prevent others from seeing when you’re active on Instagram. They can still view your online status on the platform and guess whether you’ve seen their message based on your activity.
For complete invisibility, you should also consider hiding your activity status on Instagram. Doing so will remove the green dot next to your profile icon. This, along with disabling read receipts, will allow you to go online without the pressure to reply to everyone instantly.