If you don’t want someone to know you’re ignoring their Facebook message, it’s easy to delete it without reading it
When it comes to social networks, there are many things we wish would be possible. One of them is the ability to delete unread Facebook messages. While Facebook doesn’t exactly have this, there is a way to do something like it.
Before diving deeper, you might wonder why you want to delete a message that’s still unread. The reason is that once you open it, Facebook will mark the message as read and the sender will know that you have read the message and you’re simply ignoring him/her. That’s why it is a good idea to delete the Facebook message without even opening it up, and the sender will still see it as an unread message.
Also Facebook gives you a short excerpt from the message so you are able to read the first few words without any problem. By this short excerpt, sometimes you are able to learn what the message is about without opening it. So without any further ado, let’s learn how to delete unread Facebook messages on your computer, as well as on your mobile if you are using Facebook Messenger.
Deleting unread Facebook messages
First let’s talk about Facebook on the web. When a new message is received, you will get a small red badge icon on your toolbar.
- Click on the red badge icon from the top of the screen.
- A pop-up of all recent messages will appear. Unread messages will be highlighted in this pop-up.
- At the bottom of this pop-up, click on “See All.”
- This will open an expanded view of the messages. Don’t worry, doing this will not mark any messages as read.
- From this screen, hover over the message you want to delete and click on the small X icon that pops up. This will archive the message and remove it from this list. Technically speaking, you’re not deleting the message but only archiving it. That’s all you need to do.
If you’re using Facebook Messenger on your smartphone, here’s what you need to do:
- When you launch the app, you will be able to see all recent unread messages at the top.
- Swipe left on an unread message and then tap on “Delete.” Ensure that instead of swiping, you don’t tap on it, which will open the message and mark it as read.
So this is how you can delete a message on Facebook without reading it. Try it out.
