How can I hide read receipts in Messenger so that I remain unaware...

March 27, 2019 3:17 PM

I don't like to see if someone has read my messages in FB Messenger as it can be a source of anxiety for me. However, I can't find a simple solution, and most things online are more about reading messages without alerting the sender.

Does anyone have any ideas? I use the Android app and the web browser.

posted by malpractice to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Response by poster: Unfortunately there seems to be no official way to hide read receipts to someone else, only workarounds :(
posted by malpractice at 3:33 PM on March 27, 2019

I don't see a way to stop that functionality in Messenger, though perhaps there's an Android-specific tool.

I don't mean this flippantly: could you switch to some other method of communication with this person?
posted by bluedaisy at 3:45 PM on March 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

(And you have my full sympathy about how this sort of information can be anxiety-producing.)
posted by bluedaisy at 3:46 PM on March 27, 2019

With the caveat that I don't use Facebook, so can't really look into it, but it may be possible, if the read receipt is in a simple div box, if you use a good adblocker, you may be able to block the element that shows the receipt. Again, no idea if that's possible.
posted by General Malaise at 4:02 PM on March 27, 2019

On a desktop web browser this is definitely doable with a client-side scripting system like Greasemonkey. I don't know if there's one already written, but it seems like it should be a small variant on scripts that do exist to remove/modify unwanted text elements from other pages.

On the Android app you're kind of stuck with the options provided, unless someone knows of a way to hotrod some layer of the process of displaying FB Messenger.
posted by jackbishop at 6:24 AM on March 28, 2019