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It’s simple to find out if someone read your WhatsApp message, thanks to the checkmarks alongside every message. However, did you know you can also check the time on WhatsApp messages to figure out when the other person saw them?
How to View a Message’s Read Time on WhatsApp
This trick only works if both you and the other person in the chat have read receipts enabled on WhatsApp. If you both do, you’ll be able to find an exact timestamp of when they read your message.
To see what time your WhatsApp message was read, first open WhatsApp on your phone. Find the message that you’re interested in, then long-press on it.
When you do this, new options will appear, which differ depending on your platform. On Android, you’ll see new icons on the top bar. Tap the three-dot icon at the top of the chat, then select Info. If you’re on an iPhone, you’ll see the options appear in a list. Choose Info from the list.
This will display the Delivered and Read times for your message. Delivered is when your message arrived on the other person’s device, while Read indicates when the recipient actually opened it. For more on this, make sure you understand the checkmarks in WhatsApp and Telegram.
You can check the timestamp for a read message on WhatsApp like this for both one-on-one chats and group messages. It also works if you message yourself on WhatsApp. In group chats, you can see the Delivered and Read times for each individual. Tap a person’s name in the list of participants in a group chat for full details.
Keep in mind that you can’t see message read times for other people’s messages, even in a group chat. And if the person hasn’t read your message yet, you’ll see three dots in the Read field instead.
However, you might run into a case where the WhatsApp message info says Read but has no time. In this case, the other person has probably turned off WhatsApp read receipts. This is one of the ways to use WhatsApp while maintaining your privacy; the other person probably doesn’t want others to know exactly when they were online.
Turning off read receipts prevents WhatsApp from showing when you’ve seen messages. This is why there’s no time, even though the message says “read.” There’s also a chance that the other person read your message while offline, perhaps using a trick to read messages without sending read receipts.
Keep in mind, however, that read receipts are always on for group chats. This means you can only hide your message read times in one-on-one conversations.
How to View the Message Read Time on WhatsApp Web
You can follow a similar process using WhatsApp Web to see what time someone read your WhatsApp message. Simply open the relevant chat and mouse over the message you’re interested in. Click the small arrow that appears in the right corner, followed by Message info in the flyout menu.
A sidebar will open on the right side of the screen, similar to the one in the mobile app. This shows you the Delivered and Read times for your message. Unlike the mobile app, though, you can only see Read times in group chats. Delivered times won’t show for groups.
And remember, if the message says “read” but has no timestamp, the other person probably has read receipts turned off. If there’s no read time displayed for anyone, make sure your own read receipts are enabled so this works in the future. In our tests, sometimes the mobile app showed a read time while the web app didn’t, so make sure to check the mobile app if you want the most reliable answer.
While you probably don’t care about the exact timestamp for WhatsApp messages all the time, knowing exactly when someone read your WhatsApp message can be useful in some situations. You might want to make sure that a loved one arrived at their destination safely, for example.
