How to Turn Off Read Receipts on iPhone

Read receipts show the word "Read" and a time under your last message in the other person's Messages app. You can turn them off for everyone or for one conversation at a time.

Open Messages settings

Open Settings, Apps, and tap Messages. On iOS 17 and earlier, Messages is listed directly in Settings without the Apps step.

Turn off Send Read Receipts

Scroll to the iMessage section and turn off Send Read Receipts. This applies to every iMessage conversation except any where you have set a per-person override.

Open a conversation to change one person

To leave receipts on for most people but off for someone specific, open Messages and open the conversation with that person.

Tap the name at the top

Tap the contact's name or photo at the top of the conversation to open the details screen.

Toggle Send Read Receipts for that person

Turn Send Read Receipts on or off. The per-conversation setting overrides the global one, so you can leave receipts off globally and turn them on for a partner or family member, or the reverse.

If the toggle is missing. Read receipts are an iMessage feature, which means blue bubbles. Plain SMS text messages, shown in green bubbles, have no read receipts at all, and group iMessage chats do not show them either.

If you still see "Read" under other people's messages. This setting controls only what others see about you. Whether you see read receipts from someone else depends on their setting, not yours.