You turn off read receipts for one person on iPhone by opening your conversation with them in Messages, tapping their name at the top of the thread, then switching off Send Read Receipts on their contact card. This setting lives apart from your phone-wide read receipts toggle, so you can hide your read status from one person while everyone else still sees it. By the end of this, you’ll know where that toggle sits, what happens to messages you already opened, and why group chats work differently.
Turn Off Read Receipts for a Single Contact in Messages
Open Messages and tap the conversation with the person you want to adjust, then tap their name or photo at the top of the screen. This opens their contact card for that specific thread.
Scroll down to the toggle labeled Send Read Receipts and switch it off. This one contact stops seeing when you’ve opened their texts, while everyone else you message still sees your read status as usual.
This toggle only appears inside iMessage conversations. If the thread shows green bubbles instead of blue, you’re texting over SMS, and read receipts were never part of that system.
Why the Per-Contact Setting Overrides Your Global Toggle
iOS treats the per-contact switch as more specific than your phone-wide setting under Settings, Messages, Send Read Receipts.
If you keep read receipts off globally but want one close friend to see when you’ve read their texts, turn the contact-level toggle on for just them. The reverse works too, for the one person who reads too much into a “Read 2:47 PM” timestamp.
Each contact card remembers its own setting, so you can build a different mix across your thread list without touching the global switch again.
The same logic runs through other Apple privacy tools. If you only want to share your location with one person through a text message instead of your whole contact list, you’re using that same one-contact-at-a-time model.
What Happens to Messages You Already Sent Receipts For
Turning off the toggle does not undo receipts already delivered. Any message that contact opened before you flipped the switch keeps its “Read” timestamp on their end, and the change only applies going forward.
Read receipts sit alongside other privacy controls scattered across contact cards and the Settings app, much like anyone searching for how to turn off Find My iPhone without the original password finds that setting buried a few menus deep too.
Group Chats Don’t Get the Same Control
Open a group iMessage thread and tap the group name. You’ll find notification settings and the option to rename the group, but no per-member read receipt toggle.
Group threads follow whatever your global read receipts setting says, applied to every participant at once. There’s no way to hide your read status from one person while showing it to the rest.
Your real options are turning off read receipts globally, or moving that conversation into a 1:1 chat where the per-contact toggle works.
If the toggle refuses to save or keeps reverting after you close the app, a stuck iMessage connection is often the reason. Try to reset your network settings without losing anything else on the phone, then reopen Messages once your iPhone reconnects.
Can the person I’m hiding read receipts from tell that I turned it off?
No. The toggle switches silently. The other person just stops receiving a read status, with no notification that anything changed on your end.
Does turning off read receipts for one contact affect FaceTime or other apps?
No. Send Read Receipts only controls the Messages app. FaceTime and other messaging apps run their own separate read receipt settings entirely.
What if I don’t see the Send Read Receipts option on someone’s contact card?
Check that you’re inside an iMessage conversation, not a green-bubble SMS thread. The toggle only appears for contacts you message through iMessage, and it disappears if that person isn’t currently using an Apple device.
