See if anyone has seen your text, or if you’re being ignored

Have you ever wondered if someone has read your text message but is ignoring it? In this age of constant connection, it can often be hard to tell if someone is just busy or if they’re really letting you down. Fortunately, however, technology is here to the rescue; There are a few ways to find out the truth about whether your message has been read.

Let’s break down the methods by the two major telephony software platforms: Apple’s iOS on the iPhone and Android for Google phones.

iOS

With the iPhone, there’s only one way to see when other people have viewed your messages: That person needs to have “read receipts” turned on on their phone, and you both need to use iPhone iMessage.

Here’s why: When you use an iPhone to send text messages through the native Messages app, you only have the option to “send read receipts” from your phone. When you select this option, anyone who sends you a text message will see the exact time you opened it (and presumably read it) when they view the text thread in the Messages app.

Here’s how to turn on read receipts from your iPhone:

1. Open Settings on your phone.
2. Navigate to Messages (has a green icon with a white text bubble inside).
3. You’ll find Send Read Receipts about halfway down the list of options in the Messages section. Here you can turn it on or off.

4. People will now see when you’ve read their iMessages.

However, that doesn’t really help you find out if someone else has read a text you sent. If you’re using an iPhone and want to see if someone has read your text, you need to use iMessage to send the text – and that person needs to be using an iPhone too, plus the stipulation that they have to have the option to send read receipts. activated.

So if you text a friend, family member, or colleague on an Android phone, even if you do it through the iMessage app, there’s no way to tell if your message has been seen or not unless you both turn on iMessage. the read receipt option. That can definitely be frustrating, but maybe it’s better not to know if you’ve been “left on read” or not.

Android

The situation is similar when it comes to Android phones. The Android Messages app that comes with your phone includes read receipts, and just like with iMessages, you’ll need to text with someone who has the same app and has read receipts enabled on their phone.

The process for turning read receipts on or off varies by manufacturer (for example, HTC, LG, or Samsung) and the version of Android you’re running, but in general, the process is as follows:

The following instructions should apply no matter who made your Android phone: Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc.

1. From the text messaging app, open Settings .

   Sometimes the settings are hidden behind three dots or vertical lines at the top of the screen; tap those dots or lines to show a hidden menu.

2. Navigate to Text Messages or Conversations .

   It may be on the first page that appears, or you may have to tap More settings on some phone models before it appears.
3. Turn Read Receipts , Send Read Receipts , or Request Receipt on or off depending on your phone and what you want to do.

   Typically, this is done by sliding the button to the left so that the entire button and slider are greyed out.

   You can also turn Delivery Receipts on or off (these indicate whether or not your text message has arrived successfully, not whether or not it has been read).

4. Now you have full control.

Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp

Two other popular messaging platforms include the option to send read receipts: Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

With Facebook Messenger, there’s no official way to turn off read receipts, so unless you want to download a third-party app or browser extension, you’ll be able to tell when someone has seen your message. For example, there’s the Facebook Chat Privacy extension for the Chrome browser, which is intended to block “seen” and “is typing” notices for messages you send within Messenger.

On the other hand, with WhatsApp you can opt out of the read receipts feature. To do it:

1. With WhatsApp open, tap Settings at the bottom.
2. 2. Tap Account.
3. Tap Privacy.
4. Turn off Read Receipts to prevent the other person from knowing when you have read the message.

5. And now they can’t see if you’ve read the message or not.

Final score

It’s not always possible to see when someone has seen your text, which means we can’t completely avoid that uncomfortable and uncertain feeling of wondering if we’re being avoided. However, as long as the person you’re messaging has read receipts enabled and is using the same messaging platform as you, it can be done. In all other cases, we recommend that you just assume you’re having an incredibly busy day!