The blue checkmark feature of Facebook’s instant messaging app is under debate. While some people welcome this decision, others see it as an invasion of their privacy. For this last group of users, WhatsApp provides a practical tool in the form of reading receipts. This feature has made its way to WhatsApp since 2014 and has since been among the most discussed features (until dark mode started playing the game of hide and seek).
The Read acknowledgment function lets you know if and at what time the user (recipient) has read your messages. But few want to show their 24 × 7 availability on this popular chat app. As a result, they plan to deactivate it. For the ignorant, this could be done by the settings > Account > Privacy > Read recipient. The user who chose to disable this toggle also couldn’t see the delivery status of their messages, but let’s leave that aside for now.
Today we will share an interesting hack through which you can easily find out if the other half saw your message or not, even if their read receipts have been disabled in WhatsApp. To be clear, this bug is not something new but has been around for ages. What’s even interesting is that WhatsApp also mentioned the same thing, but in a more formal approach. That said, here are the instructions required. On this note, also discover 5 ways to read WhatsApp messages without alerting the sender.
View message delivery status (with read receipt disabled)
If someone has disabled WhatsAppRead the reception function and you want to know if he saw your message, just send him a voice note. The duration of this recording does not matter. Even a one second recording would do the trick. As soon as the receiver plays it, the gray double tick becomes a blue double tick. This will happen even if the read confirmation function has been disabled. What’s even more interesting is that you can also see the exact time when the message was viewed. A very practical solution, isn’t it? Well, WhatsApp has this to say about blue ticks and voice notes:
However, keep one thing in mind. This will only work if you send a voice note. Sending an audio file like an MP3 will not work this trick. When it comes to group messages, you probably won’t need this tip at all. Indeed, read receipts are automatically disabled for group messages in WhatsApp.
This function is accompanied by a small warning. The gray double check mark will only turn blue once the receiver has read the audio. If he simply looks at the message but decides not to read it, the check mark will remain gray. And as soon as he plays your voice note, bingo, the ticks turn blue. And since this is the most recent message, it is obvious that he or she saw (or at least browsed through) all of the other messages just above it.
All of this was taken from this guide on how to easily bypass the WhatsApp playback receive functionality. We’d love to hear from you on this tip we just shared. Post your opinions in the comments section below.