How To Read An iMessage Without The Sender Knowing

Many modern messaging services automatically inform the sender of a message when it has been read. For the most part this is a great idea, but sometimes you may now want a friend or even your boss to know that you’ve done so.

So with that in mind I’m going to take a look into how you can turn off this feature if you are an iMessage user on iPhone or Mac.

The messaging app on your iPhone and Mac is capable of both sending and receiving two different types of message, text messages and iMessages. Simple text messages are sent over your carriers network, but iMessages require the network and an active data connection.

How to Turn off iMessage Read Receipts on the iPhone

Follow these easy steps on your iPhone and you will soon be reading people’s messages and if you so choose ignoring them!

1. Navigate to and then click on settings in iOS.
2. Scroll down to Messages and click on it to view the message options.
3. Look for the read receipt options and move the slider to the off position.
4. You can now go about your business knowing that if you receive an iMessage you can read it and no one will know.

One last thing to mention is that although message senders will no longer know if their message has been read they will be able to see that it has been delivered.

How to Turn off iMessage Receipts on Mac

Before I move forward with the Mac, if you use both an iPhone and a Mac to send iMessages it would be a good idea to turn read receipts off on both devices.

Here’s how to do it on the Mac:

1. Go to the messages app on your Mac and click messages on the Apple menu.
2. Click preferences in the preferences window.
3. Now switch over to the accounts tab.
4. Now that you are in, you should see your iMessage account on the left and on the right hand side the “send receipts” option checkbox you can go ahead and disable it.

Final Thoughts

Now that is it you are done, you can now read as many of your friends and relatives iMessages without them knowing as you like. And if you decide to switch it back on, it is surely as simple as reversing the process.