WhatsApp recently launched a new feature that allows the sender of message to know when his message is read by the receiver. This feature was implemented by the way of showing double light blue tick icon in the bottom-right corner of the WhatsApp message bubble. When your WhatsApp message will be read by your friend, the double gray ticks will turn into double blue ticks.
Many people appreciate this read receipt through blue tick marks. Now it has become easier to keep track of a conversation on WhatsApp. However, some users feel it is a privacy breach. If you ask me, I would also agree that the blue ticks are actually a privacy breach. It is more or less the same sort of problem as that of the Last Seen time stamp.
WhatsApp users are asking, “Is it possible to hide or disable blue tick marks? Is it possible to hide the fact that you’ve read a WhatsApp message? How can I stop my friend from knowing that I have read his message?”
Meaning of WhatsApp Blue Ticks is that your message has been seen by the recipient.
When Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook acquired WhatsApps, he made it sure that an option was provided to hide last seen time. Now a new version of WhatsApp offers a similar option to dismiss and disable the read receipt though blue ticks.
In case you don’t see the option given below, first of all you should update your WhatsApp to the latest version. Most people have already got the option to disable read receipts through automatic app updates. But in case you haven’t, do a manual update to the latest version:
- Open your current WhatsApp in your phone. Go to Settings and enable ‘Download from Unknown Sources’.
- Go to WhatsApp website and download the WhatsApp version 2.11.448 APK file
- After download, install this version of app to your phone
Once you have the latest WhatsApp in your phone, take the following steps to hide read receipts:
- Open WhatsApp and again go to Settings > Account > Privacy
- Here disable the Read Receipts option. It will disable the blue ticks in your WhatsApp messages.
Disable Read Receipt and Stop Blue Ticks from Appearing in WhatsApp
Disabling blue ticks will ensure that when you read a message on WhatsApp, no information about it is sent to server and then to the sender of the message. The sender will not come to know you’ve seen and read the message.
WhatsApp keep on rolling new features for even better mobile chat experience. Keeping high demand in view, WhatsApp has recently released WhatsApp Web. This option allows you to use WhatsApp on your computer.
As in case of last seen time stamp status, if you disable Read Receipt in your phone, you’ll also not be able to see read receipt for the messages sent by you. It is a pure give and take. If you want to see blue marks on messages sent by you, then you’ll also have to allow others to see blue ticks when you read their messages. You can not be selective. You can not dictate that I want to trade read receipt with this friend but not with that friend. It is all or none case.
You may also be interested in some very cheeky one line WhatsApp status messages. Also you can learn how to type WhatsApp messages in Hindi language.
I hope this was useful piece of information. Please feel free to comment and ask should you have any questions on this topic. I will be happy to try and help you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
Jisha says
July 9, 2017 at 3:26 pmHello, I want to know if anybody would come to know my email password, if he/she is able to read my WhatsApp messages?
Lalit Kumar says
July 10, 2017 at 10:53 amUnless your email password is written in one of the WhatsApp messages — no one would come to know your password just by reading your WhatsApp conversations.
sally says
September 20, 2016 at 3:09 pmhi
im receiving broadcast messages from a contact that has blocked me and also insists he has deleted me. how is this possible. i do have him saves as a contact but he says he deleted me. is this possible then for me to be on his broadcast list even after being deleted. he insists its only because i have him saved as a contact.
Tam says
September 17, 2016 at 8:03 pmMy colleague received a message. She read it but on my screen there are still grey ticks. She uses WhatsApp regularly and has the option to check if someone has read her messages. How ‘s possible that I still have grey ticks?
Ishika says
April 14, 2016 at 2:00 amIs it possible that I don’t get text from a person without blocking him??
Lalit Kumar says
April 14, 2016 at 9:23 amNo, Ishika. At best you can mute the WhatsApp conversation with that person and as a result you will not receive notification when you will get a message from him. But you’ll receive the message if you will not block the person.
Hemant Kumar Arya says
April 3, 2016 at 7:45 amAwesome post. This is really helpfull. Now we can disable whatsapp blue ticks in just one click.
Thank you
Ismail says
February 15, 2016 at 7:17 amHi
Is it possible to hide that the message has been delivered ?? I mean I receive message and the other person won’t find out that his/hers message has been delivered without blocking them.
Lalit Kumar says
March 8, 2016 at 12:09 pmI don’t think it is possible to hide delivery status. You can hide read receipt but delivery status will anyway go to the sender.
Deepika says
February 12, 2016 at 6:50 pmIt’s like one of my friend has disabled her whatsapp blue tick but as it’s give n take system it should not be visible to her that people are reading her messages but she can know it by red yellow n green light how is this possible
Haraj says
February 12, 2016 at 10:12 amI turned off read receipts and read one message consequently the sender now will not get blue ticks. After reading I start read receipts . Will the message I have read turning off read receipts change to blue ticks for the sender.
Lalit Kumar says
February 12, 2016 at 2:13 pmNo, we don’t think it grey ticks will turn blue in this case.
Carlos says
February 25, 2016 at 5:57 pmHi Haraj!
There is an app, called Hide Read For WhatsApp (free), that allows you to access to unread messages in WhatsApp without noticing the other people you are online nor activating the blue tick. You can also see multimedia items (photos, videos and voice notes) secretly.
Myschoolbase says
February 8, 2016 at 8:43 amThanks a lot for the guidance Lalit. I want to remove blue ticks from my iPhone 5. It’s running on iOS 8. 3
Is there anyway to do that? Please help me.
Lalit Kumar says
February 8, 2016 at 10:24 amIn your iPhone, go to Settings > Messages > turn off Read Receipts
Sonu says
February 3, 2016 at 5:05 pmI have messaged my friend, but it show only 1 tick to me. It’s been more than a month now, it still shows 1 tick. What could be the reason? If he/she has blocked me then I should not be able to see his/her DP, status n other stuffs also right? But i can see new DP, status of his/her. On the other hand when I messaged from another friend’s phone, message got delivered and got reply also. Please can you tell me what could be the reason?
Lalit Kumar says
February 4, 2016 at 11:28 amDo not reply completely on WhatsApp ticks. It is known that sometimes the tick status does not get updated even after the message has been delivered.
Lili says
December 13, 2016 at 10:00 amHello,
I have similar issue, I sent few messages to a friend and they all showed one thick, after 6days, i had few missed calls from her but the messages I sent previously still had one thick-how is that possible? If she opened the app to call me, how come the messages still show one thick?
Thank you,
Moses Naija says
January 12, 2016 at 2:49 pmMy question here is How can I send an empty message in whatsApp?
Lalit Kumar says
January 19, 2016 at 12:32 pmThe real question is why would somebody want to send an empty WhatsApp message?!
Kaush says
December 11, 2015 at 10:54 pmI don’t want to block a person but I should not receive text from him. Is that possible?
Lalit Kumar says
December 12, 2015 at 8:49 amNo, it is not possible. If you don’t want to receive WhatsApp messages from a person, you will have to block him/her.
chetan mor says
December 10, 2015 at 10:35 pmHello sir
I use iPhone 5
I regularly send photos on WhatsApp broadcast list
But in my list wen I send photos of catalog some of my contacts don’t receive any photos.
If I send photos in their message individually, they do receive it.
But if I send photos to broadcast list, only 50% of customers receive it.
Please help me
Lalit Kumar says
December 11, 2015 at 10:23 amHello Chetan, messages sent to a broadcast list are delivered to only those contacts who have saved your phone number in their mobile phones.
mark says
December 9, 2015 at 4:41 pmHi, if I send a message on WhatsApp and two blue ticks show and time shown of reading message; but the recipient says they’ve not been online. Is it a WhatsApp mistake or are they lying? thanks.
Lalit Kumar says
December 18, 2015 at 11:58 amIn case of technology, it is hard to say when it would fail. So, I would not really point finger at someone whom I otherwise trust a lot. However, given the scenario, it seems that the WhatsApp recipient is lying.
Prabhu says
April 20, 2016 at 1:32 pmHi,
This is possible in such scenario if recipient using Whats app on PC using many available software. i have configure my laptop with whatsapp software and many people are complaining to me that in spite of reading msgs y i m not replying. Since my software is ON, msgs shows as read in fact i have not read them.
brandon says
December 4, 2015 at 5:42 pmif a person sends me a message on whatsapp and i read it but then select mark as unread does the blue tick appear to the sender who sent it?
Lalit Kumar says
December 7, 2015 at 10:31 amThe blue ticks will appear on the sender’s mobile phone.
Lorraine says
October 29, 2015 at 8:11 amDoes it definitely mean contact has changed settings when only two grey ticks even though he has replied
Lalit Kumar says
October 29, 2015 at 12:19 pmNo, it does not always mean that. But if you completely stop receiving blue ticks despite continuously having WhatsApp conversation with the contact -that would definitely mean that the contact has changed the settings. Just a single instance of not receiving blue ticks is not reliable.
selena says
September 16, 2015 at 4:46 pmI use WhatsApp and when I send messages I get the double blue tick confirmation that some messages have been read. But for example if I send four messages in a row then sometimes the first one will not be read (or say rest all of them will not be read) but the second one will be read! How does this occur?
Lalit Kumar says
September 17, 2015 at 4:59 amHi Selena, thank you for asking a good question! the blues ticks appear when WhatsApp gets feedback from the recipient’s phone that a particular message has been read. But sometimes, this feedback gets lost in network traffic or does not get processed by your own phone. As a result, some messages will not show blue ticks even after they have been read. It’s not uncommon. If you send msg1, msg2, msg3 and msg4… and only msg4 is showing blue ticks, then you can assume that msg1, msg2 and msg3 have also been read.
However, I would also like to add that sometimes, your messages reach the recipient in a different order than they were sent in! That could also be the reason behind this discrepancy. But the root cause is same. Mostly these things happen if the mobile internet connection of your phone or the recipient’s phone is slow.
akash shah says
August 19, 2015 at 6:01 pmVery good article, I am feeling so good that now I can easily avoid unusual answers from irritating people. Thank you so much.
sinkelo says
July 20, 2015 at 2:28 pmVery useful, but don’t let everyone know about this. LOL.
Moosa says
June 26, 2015 at 9:55 pmThis was extremely useful to me, thank you for your help Mr. Lalit. I’ll be coming here for any more tech related queries :)
Lalit Kumar says
June 29, 2015 at 8:44 amYou’re welcome Moosa!
Riya Bajaj says
June 25, 2015 at 10:30 amThanks for the guide lalit, I want to remove blue ticks from my iPhone 5, it’s on iOS 8.3. any way to do that?
Lalit Kumar says
June 25, 2015 at 12:23 pmHi Riya, you would need to jailbreak your iPhone and then use tools like Cydia to remove blue ticks from iPhone.
navya says
November 22, 2014 at 5:04 amHI,
i m not getting the info(i) option wen i m holding the sent msgs.
my whatsapp is up to date.help me
Lalit Kumar says
December 5, 2014 at 4:45 amNavya, this option is a standard one. You should get it. If not, please explain every step you’re taking and if you can send a screenshot, that would be great for me to understand the problem.
molly says
August 23, 2015 at 10:06 pmI already read a message sent by another person. And then I went into my WhatsApp settings and turned off the ‘read receipts’. So does that mean that the status of the read message returned to unseen?
Lalit Kumar says
August 24, 2015 at 4:43 amHi Molly, unfortunately no, the message once marked as “has been read” with blue ticks does not go back to the state of “has not been read” when you turn off the “Read Receipt” option.
Chris says
September 18, 2015 at 3:43 pmHi. Help me on this one. When i sent whatsapp messages, I get first a single tick, then a double grey ticks and finally a double blue tick. But for one recepient of mine, i get a single tick and and a double grey tick but does not turn to blue even though the messages are read. What could be causing and how can i remedy it.
Lalit Kumar says
September 21, 2015 at 4:46 amHi Chris, most probable reason behind this problem is that that particular contact of yours has not yet updated his/her WhatsApp to latest version.