iOS Bug Preventing Users from Turning off Messages ‘Read Receipts’

As highlighted by the folks over at MacWorld, a new bug in iOS and iPadOS is preventing users from turning off the ‘Send Read Receipts’ option in the Messages app.

With the ‘Send Read Receipts’ option enabled, the recipient of a message can 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.

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

Unfortunately, a number of people are reporting that even 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.

While some users say restarting the device fixes the bug temporarily, no permanent solution has been found so far. Apple has also not yet issued any statement regarding the problem.

Let us know if you’re also experiencing the issue in the comments section below.