When you send a message to someone on LinkedIn, you may notice different colored check marks appearing next to the message. A grey check mark indicates the initial status of your message on LinkedIn. It means your message has been successfully sent, but the recipient has not yet read it.
What Does a Grey Check Mark on LinkedIn Mean?
A grey check mark on a LinkedIn message means that your message has been delivered successfully to the recipient’s inbox. However, they have not yet opened or read your message.
Some key things to note about the grey check mark on LinkedIn:
- It indicates your message has been sent and delivered successfully.
- The recipient has not yet opened or read your message.
- It does not indicate if the recipient is active on LinkedIn currently.
- Your message is sitting in the recipient’s inbox waiting to be read.
The grey check mark will change to another icon once the recipient opens your message. So it represents the initial sent status of your message on LinkedIn.
When Does a Grey Check Mark Appear?
A grey check mark will appear immediately after you send a message to a LinkedIn connection.
As soon as you hit send, a grey check mark should display next to your message. This indicates LinkedIn’s servers have accepted your message and delivered it to the recipient’s inbox.
However, it does not indicate the message has been read. The check mark only confirms your message has been sent on LinkedIn successfully.
How Long Does the Grey Check Mark Remain?
The grey check mark will remain next to your message on LinkedIn until the recipient opens and reads it.
Once they open your message, the grey check mark will change to a different icon indicating the message has been read.
There is no time limit on how long a grey check mark will display. It will stay grey indefinitely until the recipient gets around to opening your message.
The check mark allows you to see your message has been delivered, even if the recipient doesn’t read it right away.
What Happens When Your Message is Read?
When the recipient opens and reads your LinkedIn message, the grey check mark will change to a blue double check icon.
This blue double check indicates they have read your message. It means they opened it and saw the content you sent.
The visual change from grey to blue lets you know your message has been received and opened in their inbox.
Does a Grey Check Mark Mean the Person is Active?
The grey check mark does not indicate if the recipient is currently active on LinkedIn. It simply means your message reached their inbox.
They may be actively using LinkedIn at the moment. Or they might not log in for days or weeks.
The grey check does not confirm either way whether the person is currently online or active. It only shows your message was successfully delivered by LinkedIn.
What if the Check Mark Doesn’t Change to Blue?
In some cases, the grey check mark may never change to a blue double check, even if the recipient reads your message.
This can happen if the recipient has their LinkedIn messaging settings configured not to show read receipts.
In this situation, your message has been read, but the grey check mark won’t update to reflect that. It will remain grey and unchanged.
The recipient has the ability to turn off read receipts in their account settings. This prevents check marks from updating when they read messages.
Can You See if Someone has Read Your Message?
Thanks to the check mark system, LinkedIn does allow you to see when your messages are read.
However, recipients have the option to turn off read receipts, which prevents you from knowing if they read your message.
By default, read receipts are shown with blue double check marks when a message is opened. But not everyone keeps this setting turned on.
If you need to know definitively whether someone read your message, there is no guarantee the checks marks will reflect that. It depends on their personal account settings.
In Summary
A grey check mark next to a LinkedIn message means:
- Your message has been successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
- They have not yet opened or read the message.
- It will stay grey until they open your message for the first time.
- A blue double check indicates they’ve read your message.
- The grey check does not indicate if they are active on LinkedIn currently.
- Recipients can turn off read receipts in their settings.
So the grey check is an initial delivery confirmation from LinkedIn. It provides visual feedback that your message has been sent successfully. It will turn blue when opened, unless the recipient has disabled read receipts.
Why Does LinkedIn Use Check Marks?
LinkedIn uses check marks as a way to indicate the status of messages between users. The different colored check marks provide visual cues that allow you to see if your message has been delivered and read.
Here are some key reasons why LinkedIn uses check marks for messaging:
- Confirm message delivery – The grey check mark confirms your message was successfully received by the recipient’s inbox.
- Show message status – Each check mark color indicates whether the message has been delivered, read, or replied to.
- Provide feedback – Check marks give you instant feedback on your messages so you know they’ve been sent and opened.
- Create a conversation – Read receipts help conversations feel more natural, as you can see when your messages have been seen.
- Engagement – Read receipts incentivize recipients to open and respond to messages.
Overall, LinkedIn’s check mark messaging system makes communication between users more transparent. It streamlines conversations and provides concrete visual feedback.
Do Other Social Networks Use Check Marks?
The use of check marks and read receipts is common across many major social networks and messaging platforms. Here are some examples:
- Facebook Messenger – Uses sent, delivered, and read receipts with grey, and blue check marks.
- WhatsApp – Read receipts are optional and users can disable them.
- Instagram – Shows when messages are seen with blue double checks.
- Telegram – Uses check marks to indicate if messages are sent, delivered, and read.
- Slack – Lets you toggle read receipts on or off for work messages.
The common use of check marks across platforms demonstrates that they have become an expected part of messaging workflows and etiquette. LinkedIn adopted this paradigm as a way to align with user expectations.
Can You Turn Off Read Receipts on LinkedIn?
Unlike some other platforms, LinkedIn does not give users the ability to disable read receipts entirely. The check mark system is always on.
Recipients have the option to stop sharing last seen status and profile viewing activity. But read receipts cannot be disabled.
When you send someone a message, your check marks will always update based on if they opened it or not.
As the sender, you have no way to prevent this read data from being shown to recipients when they message you. Read receipts are permanently enabled.
Why Doesn’t LinkedIn Allow Disabling Read Receipts?
LinkedIn likely keeps read receipts mandatory to optimize messaging engagement on the platform. The goal is to incentivize users to open, read, and respond to messages.
Here are some potential reasons LinkedIn does not allow disabling read receipts:
- Increase engagement – Read receipts encourage users to respond to messages to show they’re active.
- Deliver messages – Read confirmation provides assurance your message reached the intended person.
- Foster communication – Seeing messages are read can promote more open communication.
- User expectations – Many users expect to see if their messages have been read.
- Data collection – Read data helps LinkedIn understand engagement levels.
By making read receipts always visible, LinkedIn aims to maximize messaging interaction between users.
Can You See Messages Without Sending a Read Receipt?
There is no way to view LinkedIn messages without triggering the read receipt check mark update. As soon as the message is opened, the blue double check will display.
Even previewing the message in desktop or mobile notifications will count as reading it and change the check mark color.
The only option is to completely avoid opening the message. But this means you won’t be able to see the content the sender has shared.
There is no way to discreetly read LinkedIn messages without signaling you’ve read them. Any viewing of the message body will update the check mark status.
Tips to Use Read Receipts on LinkedIn Effectively
Here are some tips to make the most of LinkedIn’s read receipt system when messaging:
- See grey checks as confirmation your message was delivered to the recipient.
- Don’t assume grey means the person is ignoring you; they may simply not be active.
- Avoid sending follow up messages too quickly just because your message hasn’t been read.
- Remember recipients could have read receipts disabled on their end.
- Use blue double checks to gauge when someone is engaging with your messages.
- Consider disabling your own last seen status for more discretion.
- Reply reasonably soon after reading time-sensitive messages.
With proper etiquette, read receipts can enhance communication without pressuring recipients.
Conclusion
Grey check marks on LinkedIn provide useful visibility into the delivery status of your messages. They indicate when a message has been successfully sent and reached the recipient’s inbox. When the check mark turns blue, you know your message has been opened and viewed.
LinkedIn’s mandated read receipts aim to increase engagement between users. Though some may want to disable them, keeping them enabled fosters open communication and provides valuable feedback.
Using check marks effectively requires understanding they don’t necessarily reflect real-time activity. But overall they offer helpful messaging confirmation and mirror usage patterns on many other platforms.