A bug prevents Messages ‘Send Read Receipts’ from being turned off

Some people find read receipts fiendish in nature; others think they’re invaluable. It’s rare to find an opinion in the middle. With read receipts enabled, a recipient of a message with see the text underneath a message they’ve sent you shift from Delivered to Read (both with timestamps) when you view the conversation in which their message appears.

Apple offers a system-wide setting to enable or disable read receipts in Messages in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The setting also syncs across all your devices logged into the same iCloud Apple ID. You can find it:

• In iOS or iPadOS, go to Settings > Messages and set the Send Read Receipts switch.
• In macOS, open Settings and go to Settings > Preferences > iMessage and check or uncheck “Send read receipts.”

However, a number of people report that with Send Read Receipts disabled on their devices, people can still see when they read messages. This problem has cropped up seemingly briefly with previous releases of iOS and iPadOS, but I see a spate of reports with iOS 15, including the latest updates, in which people have a mismatch between their setting and other people being made aware of their status.

For now, it’s a bug with no particular resolution. Some people have found restarting their iPhone or iPad provides relief, at least temporarily. I’ll update this article when the bug is fixed or a workaround is found.

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