How to turn read receipts off on Instagram

You can turn read receipts on or off for a specific conversation or for all of your DMs.

How to turn read receipts off on Instagram
Credit: Instagram

The rumors are true: You can change your read receipts on Instagram.

The feature rolled out recently and allows you to turn read receipts on or off for an individual chat or all chats, depending on your needs. For instance, you might want your read receipts off for your situationship who keeps sending you unsolicited memes that you do not find funny but you might want to keep read receipts on for everyone else, so they know when you’ve read your messages and you know when they’ve read yours.

How to turn all of your Instagram DM read receipts off

What You Need

iPhone

Instagram app

Step 1:
Navigate to “settings and privacy.”

To turn off read receipts for all messages, go to your main “settings and privacy.”

Credit: Screenshot / Instagram

Step 2:
Scroll down to “messages and story replies.”

Scroll down to “messages and story replies” and click it.

Credit: Screenshot / Instgram

Step 3:
Click “show read receipts.”

You can toggle “show read receipts” on or off depending on if you’d like to show read receipts or not on all of your DMs on Instagram.

Credit: Instagram / Screenshot

How to turn Instagram DM read receipts off for specific recipients

What You Need

iPhone

Instagram app

Step 1:
Navigate to the DM you want to edit.

To turn off read receipts for a specific message, start at your individual DM with that person.

Credit: Instagram / Screenshot

Step 2:
Click their name and navigate to “Privacy & safety.”

Click their name at the top of your DM conversation. Under “theme,” click “Privacy & safety.”

Credit: Instagram / Screenshot

Step 3:
Toggle “read receipts” on or off.

When you toggle “read receipts” on or off through a specific person’s DMs, it will only edit that specific DM.

Credit: Instagram / Screenshot

Instagram announced these changes along with a whole host of other updated features to DMs in early March.

“People connect daily on Instagram through posts and stories, but especially privately through messaging, so we’re excited to be bringing these new messaging features to Instagram,” the company said in a blog post about the updates. Users can also edit messages after they’ve already sent them, pin the messages they want to see at the top of their DM page, and more. The changes make direct messaging on the platform a lot more like texting on iMessage which, while none of he changes are particularly revolutionary, they are a welcome addition.

And with the power to edit read receipts, now you can be just that much sneakier — or more telling.

Christianna Silva is a Senior Culture Reporter at Mashable. They write about tech and digital culture, with a focus on Facebook and Instagram. Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow them on Twitter @christianna_j.

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