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iMessage read receipts and phone off

A user I iMessage with has his phone turned off (I had send as sms enabled) and now our messages are showing as green. I also cannot toggle my “read receipts”. Is this because the last message that went through was as an SMS? Will read receipts return once an iMessage has successfully gone through?

iPhone 12 Pro Max

Posted on Jul 13, 2021 10:14 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 13, 2021 10:31 PM

Yes, the read receipt feature only works on iMessages and not on SMS messages. It will work once you return to iMessage.

Is it possible that your friend has iMessages set to OFF? If one of you have your iMessages set to OFF then the only way left to communicate is through SMS messaging. Have your friend open Settigns ➔ Messages: here, ensure that iMessages is set to ON.


If all the settings check out good at both ends then you may wish to start a fresh iMessage thread. This can be done by both of you deleting the existing message thread between the two of you and starting a fresh thread. See whether this action returns the conversation in iMessage mode.


Axel F.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 13, 2021 10:31 PM in response to blondepoison

Yes, the read receipt feature only works on iMessages and not on SMS messages. It will work once you return to iMessage.

Is it possible that your friend has iMessages set to OFF? If one of you have your iMessages set to OFF then the only way left to communicate is through SMS messaging. Have your friend open Settigns ➔ Messages: here, ensure that iMessages is set to ON.


If all the settings check out good at both ends then you may wish to start a fresh iMessage thread. This can be done by both of you deleting the existing message thread between the two of you and starting a fresh thread. See whether this action returns the conversation in iMessage mode.


Axel F.

iMessage read receipts and phone off

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