How to turn off read receipts on X DMs

#Quick answer

To turn off read receipts on X (formerly Twitter), open Settings and privacy, go to Privacy and safety, find the Direct Messages block, and switch off Show read receipts. On iOS that is a slider, on Android a checkbox, and on x.com you click the box next to the setting. The change applies account-wide and takes effect immediately.

One condition before you do it: the setting is reciprocal. X states that if you turn off Show read receipts, you will not be able to see read receipts from other people either. You are trading their visibility for yours.

Last updated: September 2026

#Turn read receipts off on each platform

These steps come from X's own Direct Messages help page, which documents the setting as enabled by default.

On x.com (desktop or laptop):

1. Click the more icon in the left sidebar.
2. Click Privacy and safety.
3. Under Direct Messages, click the box next to Show read receipts to clear it.

On iOS:

1. Tap your profile icon in the top menu.
2. Select Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Privacy and safety.
4. Under Direct Messages, drag the slider next to Show read receipts to off.

On Android:

1. Tap the navigation menu icon or your profile icon, whichever your build shows.
2. Select Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Privacy and safety.
4. Under Direct Messages, uncheck Show read receipts.

There is no per-conversation version of this control. It is one account-wide switch, and it flips back on the same way.

#What you give up

X's wording is blunt: "If you turn off the Show read receipts setting, you will not be able to see read receipts from other people."

That is the entire trade. There is no tier, subscription or hidden toggle that lets you read silently while still watching whether your own messages land. If you run a business inbox and you need to know whether a client saw a quote, switching this off makes your inbox quieter and less informative at the same time.

Worth separating two things people conflate. Read receipts are a Direct Message feature. They have nothing to do with who looked at your profile or who read a public post, which X does not report to anyone. We cover that in can you see who viewed your X profile.

#The mobile web trap

Here is the detail almost every guide on this query misses, straight from the same help page: read receipts are only viewable on the X apps for iOS and Android and on X.com, but they are still sent when you view Direct Messages on mobile web.

Read that twice, because it is asymmetric. Open a DM in Safari or Chrome on your phone, at a surface where the interface never shows you a seen marker, and the sender's copy still gets one. People assume mobile web is the quiet route precisely because it looks feature-poor. It is not.

If you use X mostly in a browser, that is worth knowing beyond DMs too, and we map what the web version does and does not do in how to use X in a web browser.

#Reading a message without triggering a receipt

Turning the setting off is the documented answer. Two behaviours also help, and both have limits worth stating plainly.

Notification previews. A DM preview on your lock screen or in the notification shade shows you the first line without opening the conversation. Nothing is marked read because you never entered the thread. This fails the moment the message is longer than the preview or contains an image, and it depends on notification settings you may have already trimmed, which is a fair use for the granular controls in how to turn off notifications on X.

The Requests inbox. X notes that for conversations sitting under Requests, senders cannot see whether you have read their Direct Messages unless you accept the conversation. So a message from someone you do not follow lands in a space you can read from without reporting back. Accepting the conversation is the line you cross.

What none of this gives you is a promise. Client behaviour varies, receipts have misfired before, and a message you would rather nobody proved you read is still sitting in someone else's inbox. Treat the setting as a preference, not a shield.

#What Chat changed in 2026

This setting belongs to a DM system X has since rebuilt. On 14 November 2025 X began rolling out Chat as a replacement for basic direct messaging, adding end-to-end encrypted messaging and file sharing, voice and video calls, message editing and deletion, disappearing messages and screenshot notifications, starting on iOS and web with Android to follow (Engadget, 14 November 2025). A standalone Chat app followed in 2026.

X's About Chat page is detailed about the new machinery: per-conversation encryption keys, a PIN that never leaves your device, safety numbers for verifying who you are talking to, unsend for encrypted messages, and disappearing messages set from the conversation info screen. It does not document a separate read-receipt control for Chat. The Show read receipts switch under Privacy and safety remains the documented setting, and the features that actually change who can see what are unsend and disappearing messages.

Two other numbers on that page are useful if you message people who do not follow you. Message requests are capped per 24 hours by subscription tier:

Separately, X's Direct Message FAQs put an account limit of 500 Direct Messages sent per day, with duplicate messages to multiple accounts treated as spam activity. If you are weighing the subscription tiers against what you actually send, X Premium pricing breaks down what each one costs.

#If you DM as part of growing an account

Read receipts matter more when the inbox is a channel rather than a chat. Two honest points.

A silent inbox changes your read on conversations. Without receipts you cannot tell an ignored message from an unopened one, so your follow-up timing gets worse. If you are pitching, collaborating or handling support, leaving receipts on gives you information that is usually worth more than the privacy.

And the volume limits above exist for a reason. Blasting near-identical DMs is exactly the pattern X treats as spam, which is the trap covered in mass DM on X and what an automated DM actually is. The cap is not the constraint that should shape your approach. Relevance is.

#Bottom line

Settings and privacy, Privacy and safety, Direct Messages, Show read receipts. One switch, account-wide, on by default, and reciprocal: turn it off and you stop seeing everyone else's too. The detail to carry away is that mobile web still sends receipts you cannot see, and that messages in Requests do not report a read status until you accept the conversation. Chat rebuilt the inbox around encryption, unsend and disappearing messages in 2025, but it did not replace this setting.

If the reason you are managing DM privacy is that X has become a real channel for you, the posting side is where the gains sit, not the inbox. X-Autopilot drafts and posts from your own logged-in browser on your Mac, so the session cookie never leaves your machine. That is a smaller detection surface than a cloud tool posting from a shared IP pool, though no browser-based automation is sanctioned by X's rules.