Read receipts
All three sitesOpen a chat without sending “Seen”.
Replying can still mark a chat as read on two of them.
Works on three major social and messaging sites
Read it now.
Reply when you're ready.
A free Chrome extension that holds back read receipts, typing indicators, views on 24-hour posts and online status. They're stopped inside the page before they're sent — and it all happens on your device.
Free · No account · Nothing reaches our serversOn-demand site access · Six interface languages · Pause anytime
Your screen
Dinner tonight?
Thinking 7:30, the usual place
Sounds good, see y
Read and typing held back
Sam's screen
Dinner tonight?
Thinking 7:30, the usual place
Delivered
Watch
See it work in 25 seconds
In our two-account test
- 0.5s
- With protection off, the other account saw “Seen” in about half a second
- 30s
- With protection on, still no “Seen” after 30 seconds of waiting
- 0
- view records sent while watching a 24-hour post with protection on
From our own testing in October 2026: two test accounts, with protection switched off, on, then off again. Read receipts were checked on one supported site and 24-hour posts on another. Timings vary with the site and the connection.
Features
What stays unseen
Each one has its own switch on every site. What's available depends on the site.
Typing indicator
All three sitesWrite a reply without the other side seeing the typing dots.
Views on 24‑hour posts
Two sitesWatch without showing up in the list of viewers.
Online status
Two sitesBrowse without showing as active right now.
Changes apply right away
Flip a switch and pages that are already open follow it — no reload.
Pause everything from the toolbar
One Protection switch in the popup pauses every site at once.
How it works
About a minute to set up
- Step 01
Pick your sites
It installs with no site access. Click Enable for a site you use, and Chrome asks once — choose Allow.
- Step 02
Open the site as usual
Read chats and watch 24-hour posts the way you always do. The signals are held back inside the page before they're sent.
- Step 03
Check the toolbar
The popup shows “Active on this site” and a switch for each signal. One more switch pauses every site.
A closer look
The controls, up close
Screens from the extension itself. Site names, addresses and a few labels are made generic.
Status, and a switch for each signal
See whether the current site is active and which protections are running there. The Protection switch pauses every site at once.
Site access
Chrome's prompt, explained first
Before Chrome asks, a short guide shows the dialog you will see and which button to press. Chrome uses the same “read and change your data” wording for every extension.
Per-site settings
Each site on its own
Every supported site has its own page of switches, with a one-click way to turn them all back on.
Unseen · Settings
Setup
Enable only the sites you use
The welcome page lists the supported sites. Enable them one at a time, or all at once.
Unseen · Welcome
Privacy
Nothing to collect. Nowhere to send it.
No account. No analytics. No network requests of its own. Your switches stay in your browser, and this website runs no trackers either.
On one supported site, the extension removes the page's Content-Security-Policy headers so that some protections can work. The privacy policy explains what that means.
Read the privacy policy- 0AccountsNothing to sign up for or log in to.
- 0AnalyticsNo telemetry, usage stats or crash reports.
- 0Requests to our serversThe extension makes none of its own.
About
Your signals, decided on your device
Day21 makes small, privacy-first browser tools. Unseen starts from a simple idea: reading a message shouldn't oblige you to answer it right away. You decide when the other person knows.
Sites change their code often, so now and then a protection may stop working until we update it. The popup shows which switches are active on the page you're on, and you can copy a short diagnostics report to send us.
- Held back before it's sent
- Read receipts, typing indicators, view records and online status are stopped inside the page, before the site sends them — not undone afterwards.
- On your device
- Everything runs inside your browser tab. Your switches live in the browser's own extension storage, and nothing reaches our servers.
- Access on demand
- It installs with no site access and asks for a supported site only when you enable it. Turn a site off at any time.
Which sites does it work on?
Three major social and messaging sites, including the chats built into them. We keep this site platform-neutral, so we don't name them here. After you install, the extension lists the sites it supports and you enable the ones you use.
Read receipts and typing indicators are held back on all three. Views on 24-hour posts and online status are held back on the two sites that show them.
Will replying still mark a chat as read?
It can. On two of the sites, sending a message can tell the other person you've read the chat — that's part of how sending works there, and the extension doesn't block it.
On the third site, replying doesn't mark the chat as read. Messages you read with the switch on stay unread for the other person until you open a newer message with the switch off; then they're marked as read together.
Do I need to reload after changing a switch?
No. Each switch is checked at the moment a signal is about to be sent, so changes apply right away on pages that are already open. The popup asks for a reload only when a page was opened before the extension could run on it.
Does it read my messages?
No. It doesn't read, store or send your messages, contacts or posts. On two sites it works inside the page's own code and stops the signal before it goes out.
On the third site, it looks only at the type of each outgoing chat event and holds back the read and typing events. Message text there is end-to-end encrypted, and the extension never reads it.
Why does Chrome say it can “read and change your data”?
That's Chrome's standard wording for site access. The extension needs it to run inside the pages of the sites you enable and hold signals back before they're sent. It uses the access for nothing else; the privacy policy explains each permission.
Access is on demand. The extension installs with no site access at all and asks for a site only when you enable it. You can turn a site off at any time.
Does it change how secure a site is?
On one of the three sites, a little. There the extension removes the page's Content-Security-Policy headers, which would otherwise block part of how it works. While that site is enabled, it loses that layer of protection in your browser; turning the site off restores it. The other two sites are not changed.
Can it conflict with other extensions?
Sometimes. Another extension that takes over the same parts of a page can stop this one from working there. When that happens, the popup tells you; turn the other extension off for that site and reload.
Ready when you are.
Free to install, no account needed. Questions? We're happy to help.