Everyone Can Now Disable Read Receipts on Instagram DMs

I hate read receipts, especially when they’re forced upon me. There’s no need to tattle on me every time I open a message. And while some platforms like iMessage have offered the option to turn off read receipts, others—like products from Meta—were traditionally permanently enabled. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case, and everyone can finally disable read receipts on Instagram.

Mandatory read receipts were such a Meta staple, it’s a bit odd they’re so quietly gone now. It wasn’t an entirely silent change: Instagram did go through a test period for it last year, and both Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, and Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, shared the news about the switch on their own Instagram broadcast channels. Mosseri in particular included a screenshot of how the feature looks ahead of a public release: You can see there aren’t profile images in the bottom-right corner, which typically indicate who opened and read the last message in the thread.

Credit: Meta

Why such a simple feature needed extended testing escapes me—you’d think it’d be a simple on/off switch—but I suppose there was more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. Whatever Meta’s reasoning, it wasn’t an immediate rollout. Previously, as I reported last fall, Instagram was only allowing a limited pool of testers to try out the toggle. If you were a part of that test, you might have had this feature for a while now.

For the rest of us, the option to disable permanent read receipts on Instagram is a new luxury, one you might not have known about until now. If so, rejoice: You can now be as sneaky about checking your Instagram DMs as you are checking your texts.

How to disable read receipts on Instagram

Before you start, make sure you’re running the latest version of Instagram on your phone. It’s not clear whether this feature was delivered by a software update or a server-side update (meaning you wouldn’t have to do anything on your end to receive the feature), but updating Instagram at least ensures you’ll have the feature on your app.

Open Instagram, then head to your DMs. Choose a chat, then tap on the contact’s name at the top. Tap Privacy & safety, then, under Who can see your activity, disable the toggle next to Read receipts.