---
name: Read receipt
slug: read-receipt
category: pattern
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A per-message marker reporting how far a message got, sent,
  delivered, or read, drawn as ticks, labels, or the recipient's avatar.
aliases:
  - name: delivery receipt
    source: community
  - name: seen indicator
    source: community
  - name: blue ticks
    source: community
  - name: message status
    source: community
tags:
  - messaging
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - typing-indicator
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - chat-bubble
    - presence-indicator
    - reaction-picker
    - relative-timestamp
implementations: []
sources: []
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: the ticks that say sent, delivered, and read
---

A read receipt is a tiny state machine parked in the corner of a message. The states are
the same everywhere because the network makes them so: the message left this device, the
message arrived on that device, the recipient's app reported it on screen. Three facts,
each one weaker than it looks, and the marker's job is to report which of them has happened
without pretending to more.

The drawing is where the agreement ends. One tick then two ticks, ticks that change colour,
a filled circle then a hollow one, the recipient's avatar sliding along under the thread,
the word "Seen" with a timestamp: every one of these is somebody's convention and none of
them is a standard. There is no specification, no platform guidance, and no shared meaning
for the second tick's colour, which is why the phrase "blue ticks" identifies exactly one
product and means nothing on any other. The term travels perfectly. The glyph does not
travel at all, so a marker needs a text alternative and a legend somewhere, and a
screenshot of one product's ticks teaches nothing about another's.

Products also disagree about what "read" means, and the disagreement is not a detail. In
some it means the conversation was on screen, whether or not anyone was looking. In others
it means the message scrolled into view. In some it fires when a notification is expanded
on a lock screen. Group chats fragment the question further, since a message can be read by
four people out of nine, and the marker has to choose between the earliest reader, the last
one, and a count. This is why the same marker means "she is ignoring me" to one person and
nothing at all to another, and why so many products make the whole feature switchable, often
symmetrically: turn yours off and you stop seeing everyone else's.

The design consequence is to keep the marker's claim as narrow as its evidence. Prefer the
weakest true word over the strongest available one, put delivery and reading in different
states rather than collapsing them, treat the timestamp as part of the claim, and never
place the marker where it reads as being about the whole conversation instead of one
message. A status that overstates itself does not just misinform, it changes how the reader
feels about a silence, which is a large thing to do with fourteen pixels.