By default, Apple enables what’s called “read receipts” on your iPhone; Here is how to disable the feature in iMessage.
Read receipts, when enabled, allow your recipient to see when you’ve read their text message in iMessage. That’s fine if you have nothing to hide, but if you have read receipts enabled, they’ll be enabled for anyone you iMessage to, including your crazy ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend.
The thing is, there are many times when you receive a message and don’t want to reply to it. However, if you have read receipts enabled, the sender will know you’ve read their text message, which means you’re somewhere between some kind of rock and a hard place at that point.
It’s a good idea to disable read receipts altogether if you don’t want to give him the opportunity to see what you actually read text messages, and less a piece of information you send them.
If you want to disable read receipts on your iPhone, it’s really simple and takes less than 30 seconds. Here’s how to do it.
How to Disable iMessage Read Receipts
To disable read receipts in iMessage on your iPhone, simply follow these steps:
Open the app and then scroll down and tap on it.
an option will appear. Toggle the switch to the off position, making it gray instead of green. This will turn off read receipts and you will no longer send them to your recipients.
One thing to keep in mind is that this will not get rid of any previously sent read receipts, but will prevent future read receipts from going to recipients.
Other iMessage Tips
Of course, turning off read receipts probably isn’t the only thing you didn’t know you could do in iMessage on your iPhone. There are a handful of other tips and tricks you can take advantage of.
For example, you can record a quick voice message and instantly send it to another iPhone user. When you open a conversation window in the Messages app, you should see a small microphone icon to the right of the text box. Tap and hold to start recording voicemail.
When you’re done recording, lift your finger and then you’ll have two options: delete or send the voicemail. The X icon deletes the message and sends the up arrow message.
You can also tap and hold to save your message and then swipe up to quickly send it. Or swipe left to delete the message.
You can also quickly share your location. The Messages app allows you to share your location with a contact; this can be great for meeting someone without having to explain where you are or how they can get there.
Open a conversation window with a contact and tap on it. From there you will see two location options: and .
Tapping on it will send your current location to your contact, but this is a one-time instance, so if you switch to another location, iMessage will not continue to update the recipient with your new location.
Here it comes in handy. Tapping this option will bring up a few more options for how long you want to share your location. Pick one and hit the road!
