What Are Read Receipts?
WhatsApp lets people know when their messages have been read by displaying what’s called “read receipts.” WhatsApp shows two blue ticks underneath the message to indicate that your message was viewed. If you would like to read someone’s message on your smartphone or PC without them realizing it, there are a few ways to achieve that.
Read from the Notification Panel or Lockscreen
The easiest way to get a sneak peek at your messages is to drag down the notification bar and read the previews. Or, if you’ve allowed notification previews on the lockscreen, you can do so whenever you turn on your phone. However, there’s a small issue with this method. If someone sends you many messages, you won’t be able to read them in full, but at least you’ll get an idea of what the messages contain.
Turn on Airplane Mode on Your Device
The goal here is to get yourself disconnected from the Internet entirely. While you can manually disable the Wi-Fi or data connection, the quickest way is to switch to Airplane mode on your device to disconnect from the Internet.
Reply to Select Messages through the Notification Bar
What do you do if you’ve received several messages from different people, but one of them is urgent and needs an immediate reply? How do you keep from blowing your cover? Simple – reply from the notification bar.
Using this approach, you will be able to maintain your ghostly status while still maintaining a foot in the social app.
Turn Off Read Receipts
Another way to prevent people from knowing whether you’ve seen their WhatsApp messages is to turn off read receipts from Settings. Once you’ve done so, the blue ticks which usually appear once you’ve read a text will be replaced by a couple of neutral gray-colored ticks. In addition, you can disable Last seen from the same Privacy menu, so that no one can track your comings and goings on the messaging app. The only problem with taking this approach is that you won’t be able to see when others have read your messages either or when they have been online last. If you can live with that, this method is a pretty good solution for when you want to keep yourself under the radar.
Install an Extension on Desktop
If you want to remain invisible while using WhatsApp Web, you’ll have to install an extension in your browser. In Chrome, you can get WAIcognito. Now that you have turned off read receipts in WhatsApp, we recommend that you read how you can export your app chat history to a PC or how to send disappearing messages using the service.
