Social Media Instagram Can You Turn off Read Receipts on Instagram? No, But There Are Workarounds How you can keep others from seeing you've read their message by Molly McLaughlin Writer, Editor Molly K. McLaughlin has been a technology writer since 2004. Her work has appeared on many tech sites across the web including PCMag, Dealnews, Wirecutter and many others. our editorial process Twitter LinkedIn Molly McLaughlin Updated on November 04, 2020 Instagram The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Tweet Share Email What to Know If you read messages with airplane mode on, they will appear as unread in your inbox and the sender won't know you've seen them.If you tap on a message notification, that counts as read.You can't turn off read receipts on Instagram. This article covers workarounds for disabling read receipts on Instagram, including turning on airplane mode and not clicking on new message notifications. How to Prevent Instagram Friends From Knowing You Read Their Message You can't turn off read receipts on Instagram, but you can read messages privately by first turning on airplane mode. But first, you need to avoid tapping new message notifications. Turn Off Instagram Message Notifications When you tap an Instagram message notification, that message gets marked as read, and there's no way to undo it. One way to avoid this is to turn off Instagram Direct notifications. Here's how. Open the Instagram app and go to your profile. Tap the menu icon (three vertical lines). Tap Settings at the bottom. Select Notifications. Select Messages. (It might say Direct Messages.) Under Message Requests and Messages, tick the circles next to Off. Turn off Instagram Notifications to Stop Getting Alerts About Posts Read Instagram Messages While in Airplane Mode When you're ready to read your messages, open your inbox and turn on airplane mode before tapping any messages. Open the Instagram app. Tap the Messenger symbol in the top right. If you haven't switched to the merged Instagram/Facebook Messenger inbox, tap the mail icon to open the Instagram Direct inbox. Turn on Airplane Mode and make sure Wi-Fi is off. On Android, swipe down from the top of the screen to access the Quick Settings Menu. Tap Airplane mode. To turn on airplane mode on an iPhone, swipe down to open the Control Center and tap Airplane mode. Turning on airplane mode on an Android phone. Read your messages. Exit the inbox and return to your profile page. Tap the menu icon (three vertical lines). Tap Settings at the bottom. Scroll down and tap Log Out. Turn off airplane mode. Log back into your account.