Published · by ChatWatch
The three states, exactly
- One grey tick: sent. WhatsApp's server has the message. The other phone has not received it yet.
- Two grey ticks: delivered. The message is on their phone. They may not have seen it.
- Two blue ticks: read. They opened the chat with your message visible. Blue ticks appear for both of you only if both have read receipts on.
- A clock instead of a tick: not sent. Your own phone has no connection yet.
Why a message stays on one grey tick
One tick lasts as long as their phone is unreachable: switched off, out of coverage, in airplane mode, on a dead battery, or with WhatsApp's background data turned off. It also lasts when the number is no longer active on WhatsApp. None of those involve you.
A single tick that never turns into two is also what you see when someone has blocked you. The difference is time. A phone that is merely off comes back within hours and the second tick arrives on its own; a block never delivers. One tick for an hour means nothing; one tick for a week, while the person is clearly active elsewhere, means something.
Two grey ticks but no reply
Two grey ticks tell you the message is on their phone. They do not tell you it was seen. A notification can be dismissed without opening the chat, the chat can be muted or archived, and a message can sit unread for days on a phone that is used all the time.
If the ticks stay grey while you can see the person online, the likeliest explanation is that read receipts are off on their side. With read receipts off, WhatsApp never shows blue ticks for that person, however many times they read you.
Blue ticks, and how to turn them off
Blue ticks are the only state that proves the chat was opened. Turning them off is in Settings, then Privacy, then Read receipts: with the switch off you stop sending blue ticks and you stop receiving them. The switch does not exist for groups, where ticks always work, and it has no effect on voice messages, which show a blue microphone once played.
When a single tick means you are blocked
Together with a single tick, a block removes the person's last seen and online status from your chat, freezes their profile photo, and makes calls fail without ringing. But every one of those can also be a privacy setting or a dead phone, so the ticks alone never settle it.
ChatWatch can settle it. The check links your own WhatsApp for one minute and gives a straight yes or no on whether a number has blocked you, without sending them anything. It is a one-time payment and you are not charged if there is no result.
Ticks on WhatsApp: the questions
Does one grey tick mean I am blocked?
- Not by itself. One tick means their phone has not received the message, which happens when it is off, offline or on a dead battery. A block looks the same at first; what tells them apart is time. Hours of one tick are normal, days are not.
Can the ticks be grey even if they read my message?
- Yes. With read receipts turned off, WhatsApp never shows blue ticks for that person, no matter how many times they read you.
Why do I see two grey ticks but they are online?
- The message is on their phone and they have not opened the chat, or they have read receipts off. Online means WhatsApp is open on one of their devices, not that they are reading you.
Do ticks work in groups?
- Yes, always. Read receipts cannot be turned off for groups, and the group's message info shows who received and who read.
Is there a way to know for sure if someone blocked me?
- Yes. ChatWatch's block check gives a flat yes or no in about a minute, from your own WhatsApp, and nothing is sent to the other person.