Facebook and WhatsApp have been amazing social media platforms to effortlessly communicate with people around the globe, making calls, sending messages, exchanging information, and a lot more. We are sure that most of us must have been through a situation when we did not want to reply to any messages but can’t ignore reading those notifications either. This moment is when we feel compelled to reply instantly which might not be practical always. With such a state we always wish to have known some workarounds to read Facebook messages without being seen by our senders. So, let us quickly know more about these workarounds.
How to read Facebook messages without the sender knowing
Facebook, unlike WhatsApp, does not provide an essential feature of reading receipt to prevent messages from being marked as “seen” even after reading them. When we open Facebook messages, it immediately gets marked as ‘seen’, and the sender is notified about the current state of their messages. Hence, the senders understand that the messages were read.
On Facebook, the status of messages can be distinguished into four states.
STATE 1 – Empty Circle
When a sender types to send a message and the message typed is in the process of getting delivered to the other end, it is usually denoted by an empty circle that means that the message is in ‘sending’ state.
STATE 2 – Empty Circle with check
Messages when no longer remain in sending state and have been ‘sent successfully’ to the receiver. This state is marked by a grey circle.
STATE 3 – Filled Grey circle
A filled grey circle appears only when the sender’s message has been ‘sent and delivered’ to the receiver. Remember “sent” and “sent & delivered” are different in meaning.
STATE 4 – Your Profile Icon
Once the message delivered by the sender is read, it changes from a filled grey circle to your profile icon. This implies that the messages were seen by the receiver.
Now since we have some idea about the different status of messages, we can better learn about the secret ways of “How to read someone’s Facebook messages without them knowing”. This does save us from giving rude responses to our senders and meanwhile, we can read their messages too.
How to read Facebook messages without opening
1) View messages through notification screen
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger push new messages to the devices they are installed on and do not wait for the device users to open the app and read messages. But still, we can receive messages through the notification screen on our devices. This means whether we have checked messages or not, our device will keep updating us with the latest Facebook messages without opening messenger.
It is possible when we have enabled banner notifications on our devices. Banner notification saves you from the compulsion to reply and allows you to read messages without letting senders know.
NOTE – Depending on the feature of the device you own, you can either read a part of the message or the entire message.
How to check Facebook messages without messenger
The proposal of reading Facebook messages without messenger is usually doubted and people start to put questions like ‘can I read Facebook messages without a messenger?’ or ‘Is reading Facebook messages without messenger possible? ‘. The appropriate response is YES, so here are some tricks to read Facebook messages without really utilizing functionalities of Facebook messenger.
a) Turn ON Airplane mode for Facebook messenger –
Once you have received any Facebook message, immediately disable your mobile data and turn on to Airplane Mode. This trick helps to read messages from Facebook Messenger without being seen. Airplane mode temporarily kills your Internet connection. Thereby, preventing you from letting the sender know about the messages that have been seen whereas the ‘read receipt’ remains unseen.
NOTE – Make sure to close the app from the background before you turn off the Airplane Mode on mobile.
1) Visit your mobile settings by sliding down the home screen, then click to open “Wi-Fi & internet” or “Wi-Fi”.
2) This drops down a complete list of Internet services available, select “Airplane mode” and tap to turn it ON. This has an icon with an Aeroplane.
b) Access Facebook website using a browser –
There are a few Facebook websites that help you to access your messages without using messenger either on the desktop or on mobile devices.
When the website is accessed on browsers using mobile, it redirects you to download the Messenger app. But this can be bypassed through browser settings, by tapping on “Request desktop site.”
On iOS, visit this setting by tapping the share button in Safari and for on Android, visit by tapping the three-dot menu icon located at the upper right corner.
Steps to access Facebook messages using facebook.com or related web addresses like messenger.com, free.facebook.com/messenger, or facebook.com/messenger (these web addresses do the same job as facebook.com).
1) Download and open the Chrome browser on mobile, then navigate to facebook.com by typing it in the search bar.
2) Open the three-dot icon located at the upper right corner within Chrome and check the box next to “Request Desktop Site”.
3) Reload the page to see the Facebook.com with a desktop view.
4) Log in to your Facebook account.
5) Once you have logged into your Facebook account, you can read messages by clicking on the tab located at the bottom right. That prompts up a small pop-up window to make your messages visible to you without being seen.
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How to read Facebook messages without being seen on PC or laptop
This method has come to rescue desktop users who access their Facebook account using PC or Laptop which is comparatively difficult than those users using android or iPhone. That’s when third-party plug-ins for your browser come into the picture.
If you are a Chrome user, then make use of the “Unseen” browser extension to block read receipt being sent to the sender. That would notify them about the messages seen.
1) To do this open a new tab in chrome, then navigate to “Apps” a colorful square grid located at the upper left corner. And from the options select “Web Store”.
2) Search for “Unseen” browser extension in chrome.
3) Then click on “Add to chrome” and the plug-in will get installed in chrome. Use this plug-in to read Facebook messages in private.
If you use Firefox, then try browser extension like “Message seen disable” or “FB unseen”. These plug-ins do the same job as “unseen”.
1) To do this open a new tab in Firefox, then navigate to three-line which is located at the upper right corner.
2) Click on “Add-ons” to search for the extension and hit “Add to Firefox” to install the required plug-in in Firefox.
How to read Facebook messages without being seen in Android
In case you access Facebook messages frequently on Android more than you do on any other device, then you must use the ’Unseen app’ to read Facebook messages without notifying the senders.
1) Open Google play store, search for “Unseen App” to install it on your Android device.
2) Follow the on-screen instructions to set up the “Unseen App” on your Android device.
Grant notification access to the unseen app
Now whenever you receive any Facebook message, instead of reading it from messenger read it by using the Unseen app. This prevents messages from being marked as seen and remains “sent & delivered” thereby, not allowing the ‘Seen’ icon from appearing next to the sent message.
Message read on unseen
A message remains delivered after using the unseen app.
How to read Facebook messages without being seen on iPhone
In case you access Facebook messages frequently on iPhone more than you do on any other device, then you must use apps such as No seen, push over notifications, No last seen for the messenger to read Facebook messages in private.
1) Search and download ‘No seen’ App from Apple Play Store to install it on the iPhone
2) Follow the on-screen instructions to set up the ‘No seen’ app on the iPhone.
So this was all about the workarounds to secretly “read Facebook messages without being seen” by the senders and I am sure things must have become a little handy now for similar situations. Now you know some good and effective ways to prevent yourself from compelling to reply and ignore message notifications.