Does marking an unread DM as "read" to clear the notification make it appear as "seen"?

[u/tryingmybest10]

Long story short, there's a person I know who I turned down a date with a while back, and for some reason lately they will not stop messaging me. This is a nice person and I don't want to hurt their feelings by telling them to stop directly, because I know that will go over very badly, so I've been pretending I haven't seen the messages.

However, I have a couple of chats going, and one of them is very active, so I regularly mark all chats as "read" to clear the notifications. But I have a question: if I do not open a DM chat, and simply mark it as "read," is it marked as "seen" on the sender's end, or just as delivered?

(And yes, I've tried turning off read receipts, but no matter which way I try to do it the toggle option literally isn't there.)

[u/AutoModerator]

This is an automated message that is applied to every post. Please take note of the following:

• Due to the influx of new users, this subreddit is currently under strict 'Crowd Control' moderation.
  Your post may be filtered, and require manual approval. Please be patient.

• Please check in with the Mega Open Thread which is pinned to the top of the subreddit. This thread may already be collapsed for our more frequent visitors. The Mega Open Thread will have a pinned comment containing a collection of the month's most common reposts. Your post may be removed and directed to continue the conversation in one of these threads. This is to better facilitate these discussions.

• If at any time you're left wondering why some random change was made at Twitter, just remember: Elon is a total fucking idiot and a complete fucking poser

---

^{Submission By: /u/tryingmybest10}

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/zomerbk]

Marking a DM as read from the inbox may clear the unread status without opening the conversation, but whether that sends a “seen” receipt can depend on X’s current app version and settings. I wouldn’t rely on it to stay unseen; if that matters, avoid marking that chat read and check from a second account before testing on this person.

[u/Objective_Window_779 → u/zomerbk]

another AI response

[u/DoggoDiamantino]

Yes, if you use the "Mark all as read" shortcut or a quick action to clear your notifications without opening the conversation, it does not trigger a "Seen" status on the sender's end

The status under your message thread will remain unchanged, because you never actually initialized the chat session or rendered the messages in the view pane. The platform simply clears the unread badge counter for your convenience, treating it server-side as cleared without actually executing the read receipt trigger that opening the chat thread forces

If you've been hunting for the read receipts switch and coming up empty, you aren't losing your mind. X revamped their direct message settings a while ago. On X, the global read receipts toggle is tied to your direct message permissions. If you have "Allow message requests from everyone" (or allow anyone to message you) enabled, X automatically forces read receipts on for certain account tiers or locks the setting so you cannot toggle it off independently. If you want to completely disable read receipts globally, you generally have to restrict who can message you, but this might block other conversations you actually want to keep open.

[u/Objective_Window_779 → u/DoggoDiamantino]

lol this is such a worthless copy/paste response from some AI

[u/DoggoDiamantino → u/Objective_Window_779]

Yes, all the answers after yours, which is one and a half lines long, are AI-generated. Perfect 🤣🤣

[u/Objective_Window_779]

It just clears the notifications on your end and doesn’t show up as “seen” to them.