Instagram DMs offer a convenient way to connect with friends and family, but read receipts can sometimes feel intrusive by revealing exactly when you’ve viewed messages, adding unnecessary pressure to reply immediately. If privacy matters to you and you’d prefer the flexibility to respond at your own pace, disabling read receipts provides a straightforward solution to keep your activity private. Here’s how to do it on Android, iOS, iPadOS, and web browsers.
Important Note:
Before you begin, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
- First, any changes made to read receipts in an individual chat won’t be affected by global settings. For example, if read receipts are enabled for a specific conversation and you later turn them off for all chats, that particular chat will still have read receipts turned on.
- Additionally, read receipts are not available for end-to-end encrypted chats that you or someone else has started.
Table of Contents
Manage Read Receipts on an Android Phone
On Android devices, Instagram allows you to manage read receipts either for individual conversations or for all chats at once.
Manage Read Receipts in a Specific Chat
- To begin, launch the Instagram app on your smartphone and tap “Messages” at the bottom of the screen.
- Next, open a conversation from your chat list and tap the chat name at the top.
- From there, tap “Privacy and safety“.
- Finally, toggle “Read receipts” off to stop others from seeing when you’ve read their messages.
Manage Read Receipts for All Chats
- Alternatively, if you’d prefer to disable read receipts across all conversations, tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
- Then, tap “Menu” in the top-right corner.
- Under “How others can interact with you“, select “Messages and story replies“.
- Tap “Show read receipts,” and then toggle “Read receipts” off to disable them for all chats.
Manage Read Receipts on iPhone
Similarly, Instagram offers the same read receipt controls on iPhone as it does on Android.
Manage Read Receipts in a Specific Chat
- Start by launching the Instagram app on your iPhone and tapping “Messages” at the bottom.
- After that, open a conversation and tap the chat name at the top.
- Tap “Privacy and Safety“, then toggle “Read receipts” off to hide when you’ve read messages in that chat.
Manage Read Receipts for All Chats
- If you want to apply the change to all chats, tap “Profile” or your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
- Next, tap “Menu” in the top-right corner.
- Under “How others can interact with you“, tap “Messages and story replies“.
- Tap “Show read receipts“, and toggle “Read receipts” off to disable read receipts for all chats.
Manage Read Receipts on iPad
In the same way, you can manage read receipts easily on an iPad.
Manage Read Receipts in a Specific Chat
- First, launch the Instagram app on your iPad and tap “Messages” on the left side of the screen.
- Then, select a conversation and tap the chat name at the top.
- Tap “Privacy and Safety“, and toggle “Read receipts” off to prevent others from seeing when you’ve read their messages.
Manage Read Receipts for All Chats
- To turn off read receipts for all chats, tap your profile picture on the left to open your profile.
- Next, tap “Menu” in the top-right corner.
- Under “How others can interact with you“, tap “Messages and story replies“.
- Tap “Show read receipts“, and toggle “Read receipts” off.
Manage Read Receipts on Desktop Browser
If you prefer using Instagram on a desktop browser, you can still control read receipts through your account settings.
Manage Read Receipts for All Chats
- Go to instagram.com and log in to your account.
- Then, click “More” in the bottom-left corner and select “Settings“.
- From there, click “Privacy and Safety“, followed by “Messages and story replies“.
- Finally, locate “Show read receipts” and toggle it off to stop others from seeing when you’ve read their messages.
Note: At present, Instagram’s desktop settings only allow you to manage read receipts for all chats, not individual conversations.
Final thoughts
Overall, turning off read receipts on Instagram gives you greater control over your conversations while removing the pressure to respond immediately. Whether you’re using Instagram on a phone, tablet, or desktop browser, the platform offers flexible options to manage your privacy—either for individual chats or across all messages. As a result, you can read messages on your own time and engage in conversations when it suits you best, without compromising your comfort or personal boundaries.
