One of the best modern advantages of any good messaging app is being able to see not only when your message has been delivered, but also when the recipient has read it. Especially if the message is about an important matter, or maybe you’re confessing something that takes a lot of courage. Once you’ve built up the courage tosend the text, you then have to patiently wait for the reply. This might be nerve-wracking, especially if the other side takes their sweet time. It’s a ripe period for all the doubts and worries to come out – definitely not the time to lose the carrier pigeon.
That’s why read notifications are so important for so many people. They show you that the message has been sent, and then inform you if the other side has read it.
One of the things that can make you a bit less uneasy is knowing that someone simply hasn’t yet come around to reading your text yet. This means they are not ghosting or ignoring you – they are just not looking at their phone, or at the very least, their messages, at the moment, so not replying is simply a problem of logistics, and totally not our fault.
That’s why read notifications are so important for so many people. They show you that the message has been sent, and then inform you if the other side has read it (of course this means opening it and seeing the text, reading is another thing, to be honest). They can be enabled and disabled, but having them on is a great way to alleviate these insecurities.
If you have an Android phone – whether abudget oneor one of thebest flagships– setting up read notifications is extremely easy. Here’s how to do it and how to check whether your messages have been read or not yet.
How to set up RCS chats on your Android phone
Do you want to turn on RCS messaging on your Android phone? Here’s how to turn it on and everything you need to know about this feature.
They might be useful, but there are downsides
Even though read notifications are extremely convenient, they are also a bit problematic if you think about it. If you’re on the fence about whether to turn them on or off, here are some pros and cons you need to know about them.
The main advantage of read notifications is basically the peace of mind that they give you. You’re sure that the message got sent and was delivered, but you also know if somebody hasn’t yet had the time to read through the text, so you might avoid some misunderstandings or unnecessarily hurt feelings.
Sometimes not knowing is just plain better.
However, with all the info comes great responsibility. Even though read notifications are useful, they can also be quite a bit of a pain. First – if you know someone’s read your message and is not responding, it does tend to bring you down a notch, as sometimes not knowing is just plain better.
But this info also brings about some privacy concerns. Shouldn’t it be confidential if you’ve read the message or not, or should the other side have the right to know about it? It’s difficult to answer that question one way or another, but it certainly is something to think about and discuss when talking about read notifications.
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No more uncertainty around delivery
So, if you’ve decided to start using read notifications, you’ll first have to enable them. Fortunately, now that Android has switched to RCS messaging, it’s incredibly easy – you just need toturn on RCS chatsand then go for an extra step.
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Open your Messagesapp
So, you have your read receipts turned on, and you’re ready to enter the world of knowledge – or at least the knowledge of who and when reads your messages. How do you now go about checking when your texts have been read? It’s incredibly easy – just follow these steps:
As you can see, checking the read status of your message is incredibly easy on Android. However, with that said, there is a detail here to keep in mind. As this feature relies on RCS messaging, you and the other side need to haveRCS chats turned on. If you’re using regular old SMS, you won’t be able to receive these read receipts.
Does it work between Android and iOS?
All thanks to RCS chats
As I’ve mentioned, the read notification feature works on Android thanks to RCS chats. That’s great news for Android users, but it means that read receipts will not work when you’re messaging with someone using an iPhone. Just as the other way around, you’ll simply be using SMS messaging that way, which has no chat features such as read receipts.
If you want to get read receipts when messaging people with iPhones, you’ll need to use other messaging apps, such asWhatsApporFacebook Messenger– they allow this feature across platforms as well.
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