How Read Receipts Work on Stitch

The two message states

Stitch keeps this simple. A message you send shows one of two indicators next to its timestamp: a single grey tick, meaning the message has been sent, and two coloured ticks, meaning it has been read. There is no separate "delivered" indicator in between.

The indicator updates in real time, so a message can sit on one tick for a while and then switch to two the moment the other person opens the conversation.

What actually marks a message as read

A message counts as read when the recipient opens the conversation it is in — not when it arrives, and not when they glance at a notification. Reading a message from a lock-screen banner without opening the app does not mark it read, because the app has no way to know the banner was seen. Only opening the chat itself does it.

Turning read receipts off — and what you give up

Go to Settings → Privacy & Security and switch Read Receipts off. When you do, the people who message you no longer see their messages turn into two ticks, even after you have opened them.

The trade-off is symmetrical, the same way it works on most messaging apps: turning your read receipts off also turns off your own view of other people's read status. Every message you send stays on a single tick and never advances to two, regardless of whether the other person actually opened it. This is intentional — it stops read receipts from becoming one-directional, where you can watch others without them being able to watch you.

The same applies in reverse. If the person you are messaging has read receipts off, your messages to them stay on one tick no matter when they read them.

Read receipts in group chats

In a one-to-one chat, "read" is unambiguous. In a group, Stitch records which members have opened a message, but the indicator is all-or-nothing: your group message only turns into two ticks once every other member has read it. Until then it stays on one tick, even if most of the group has already seen it.

Muting a group does not affect read receipts at all. Muting only silences notifications; read status is driven purely by whether the conversation has been opened.

Common situations that confuse people

• "It is still on one tick but I know they are online" — the recipient may have the app open to a different chat, or may have read receipts turned off. Either one keeps the message on a single tick.
• "I saw the message in a notification but it still shows unread on my end" — expected: a notification preview does not count as opening the chat.
• "My group message is still on one tick even though people have replied" — expected: a group message only shows two ticks once every other member has read it, so one member who has not opened it keeps the whole message on one tick.
• "I turned off read receipts but I still see old read statuses" — the setting affects status going forward; it does not retroactively hide read marks that were already recorded.
• "It never goes to two ticks with this one person" — as well as read receipts being off on either side, a message also stays on one tick if that person has blocked you.

Deciding whether to turn read receipts off

Read receipts are a reasonable default for most people, since knowing a message was read helps you judge whether a lack of reply means "busy" or "has not seen it yet." The setting is worth turning off if you regularly open messages before you are ready to respond and would rather not signal that, or if you simply prefer not sharing that detail with everyone you chat with.

Because the setting is mutual and reversible, there is no wrong choice — try it either way and change it back at any time from Settings → Privacy & Security.

A subtlety worth knowing: the setting is not per-chat

Unlike muting, which applies to one chat at a time, read receipts are a single account-wide setting. There is no way to show read status to one contact but hide it from another. Stitch does not currently offer a per-contact version of this setting — it is on or off for every conversation at once. Knowing that upfront avoids expecting it to behave differently in different chats.

Read receipts and message editing

The two features interact more strictly than people expect: once a message has been read, you can no longer edit it. Editing is only offered on a plain text message you sent within the last 15 minutes that the other person has not read yet, so a read message is final.

If you need to correct something after it has been read, send a short follow-up message. Your other option is Delete for everyone, which works on your own messages with no time limit and leaves a "This message was deleted" placeholder.