A Touchy Subject: Turning Off Read Receipts On TikTok

It’s always reassuring to know that someone has read your message or email, particularly if it’s important.

So-called “read receipts” aren’t common for emails, though. Many email services don’t support them, and others require that both the sender and recipient are on the same email server. The only somewhat-reliable way to get a read receipt is to use a third-party email tracking tool, which embeds tiny, invisible images in emails to let the tool determine if the mail has been opened.

When you send a direct message on a social media platform, though, generating a “read” notification is much easier since both parties are using the same app.

TikTok does have the capacity to deliver read receipts for DMs, but it’s not automatically enabled. The sender and recipient each must activate the feature in their TikTok accounts before a receipt is generated — and not everyone wants to use the function.

Pros and Cons of Read Receipts

You might think it’s nothing more than common courtesy to let friends and followers know when you’ve opened their TikTok direct messages. When a DM is time-sensitive or otherwise important, knowing that the message has been seen can reduce anxiety on the part of the sender.

Notification that a DM has been read also prevents the recipient from being deluged with follow-up messages from senders who are concerned that their communication hasn’t been seen. On the other hand, a read receipt can also cause issues on both ends.

The recipient may be occupied with more important business requiring them to delay an answer, or they may feel that they need a while to compose a suitable response. Once a read receipt has been generated, however, they may feel added pressure to answer the message quickly; that could lead to an incomplete or unsatisfactory response.

It could also cause increased tensions between the recipient and sender, with the latter becoming increasingly anxious that their message (and they) are being deliberately ignored, or that an unexpected and potentially negative complication is preventing the recipient from quickly responding.

In short, deciding whether to enable read receipts can be a difficult decision — and even telling a friend that you don’t want the notifications to be enabled could trigger a touchy conversation.

If you do have that discussion and it goes well, or if you each independently decide to turn on read receipts, here’s what you need to do to be sure the notifications are sent out.

How To Turn On and Off Read Receipts on TikTok

As we’ve mentioned, this setting is “off” by default. However, you can use the same procedure to enable or disable read receipts for your direct messages.

1. Visit your TikTok profile by tapping the “Profile” icon at the bottom right of your home screen.
2. Open the profile menu by clicking on the three horizontal lines at the top right of the profile screen.
3. Choose “Settings and privacy” from the popup menu.
4. Tap “Privacy” on the next screen, and then select “Direct message.”
5. Move the toggle switch next to “Read status” to the right to activate read receipts; move it to the left to turn them off.

Remember, the receipt (a “Read” icon next to a message that has been opened) will only appear if both sender and recipient have turned this feature on. If you don’t know whether the person receiving your message has activated the function, the lack of a notification doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ignoring you. They may simply not have their “Read status” enabled.