How To Read Messages Without Read Receipts On Facebook Messenger

With nearly 2 billion active users, Facebook Messenger has been spotted as one of the most popular messaging apps. Like other platforms, Messenger also shows read receipts in the form of a small, round avatar picture when a friend has read your messages. However, sometimes they come at a cost: someone can find it a little anxious if he saw the read receipt but there was no response from his friend. Well, it could be very frustrated and awkward moments.

For many reasons, maybe you never want your friends to know you’ve read the messages they sent. Here’re some ways to make sure they won’t get read receipts in these cases.

1. Read messages through notifications

Reading messages in this way doesn’t come with a read receipt. When messages arrive as notifications, you can keep an eye on them without opening the chatbox. To be able to do this, you have to turn on the Messenger notifications inside the app, then check your phone’s current settings to know whether it allows explicit messages to display in notifications or not.

However, you won’t be totally satisfied as the notification shortens the full message if it exceeds about 160 characters. Here’s an example:

2. Go into airplane mode 

This trick actually prevents the “read receipt” feature from activating by disabling all network connections on your device, including both Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks.

Firstly, don’t open the chat before turning on the airplane mode. When the mode is ready, click on the messages and read, and then quit the app before coming back from the mode. You should never forget this last move!

3. Use a Chrome extension

Using extensions on Chome is not effective all the time as we want. In fact, there’re numerous extensions that are not on par with promotions. Out of all, you can take the plunge or try an extension named "Unseen" because it’s the rare one that blocks read receipts.