Skype starts testing read receipts to let you know who read your messages

Laurent Giret

After introducing encrypted conversations a couple of months ago, Skype continues to play catch up with the most popular messaging apps out there. Indeed, the latest Skype preview build 8.26.76 brings support for read receipts, letting you see at a glance who read your latest messages.

Microsoft says that this feature is available in 1:1 conversations and group chats with 20 or fewer people, and you’ll see your contacts’ avatar below your messages after they’ve been read, as seen below:

For now, read receipts will only work between Skype users running the latest Insider build. You can turn the feature on and off in settings, and Microsoft explained that read receipts will also be disabled when you switch to Invisible mode.

This latest preview build for Skype has started rolling out to Android 6+ and iOS 10+ devices, as well as the desktop client for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can’t officially download this version of Skype on the latest versions of Windows 10, unless you open this page in Internet Explorer and then run the installer in compatibility mode.