I recently ran into a little dilemma with my Apple Watch. I always team up with read receipts because I don't mind people being able to see if I'm reading a message. I'm usually aware of that too and I make a conscious decision whether or not to respond. However, as Apple Watch owners know, the device displays new messages as notifications, but still sends the read receipt.
The Apple Watch's sensor is good, but it's not perfect. Sometimes I find that it sent a read receipt when I've never seen it at all, other times it sends one when I quickly dismissed the message before reading it. Until Apple found a way to fix this, I really wanted to turn off read receipts on my watch, but keep them on my iPhone and other devices. Turns out there's an easy way to do this.
Currently, Apple has no settings for the Messages app directly on Apple Watch. Instead, open the Watch app on your linked iPhone.
Scroll to Messages and press. You'll see two main settings at the top:Mirror my iPhone and Custom . iPhone mirroring means that all of your iPhone settings that apply to messages on your Apple Watch will be automatically transferred. It mimics what you set on your phone.
If you choose Custom instead, Apple Watch lets you define your own separate settings for message behavior on that device. To adjust read receipts for Apple Watch only, select Custom .
A bigger list of customization options is growing. Scroll all the way down, then toggle the switch to Send Read Receipts . Turning it off does this only for the Apple Watch, not on your other Apple devices.
With this option disabled, you are finally free from inaccurate read receipts. Seeing or even ignoring a notification on your watch will no longer send a read receipt. In fact, no interaction on your watch will. Instead, the only time Apple will send read receipts is to your iPhone, iPad, and Mac if you have them enabled there.
There is another way to keep message read receipts accurate on Apple Watch. This is to disable the alerts themselves on your watch. This only sends a read receipt when you open the Messages app on Apple Watch and tap something to view the message. This isn't practical if you want notifications, but if you don't, it works great.
To use this tactic, open the Watch app on iPhone again. Tap Notifications , then tap messages . Make sure Personalized is selected again, then off Show Alerts .
A good workaround for easy access to messages without getting alerts is to keep a Messages complication on your default watch face.
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