Read Receipts & Typing Indicators

Two lightweight sender actions let your integration behave like a person on the other end of the chat:

• Read receipt: show the contact that their message was read (for example blue ticks on WhatsApp, "Seen" on Messenger and Instagram).
• Typing indicator: show "typing…" while your bot or backend prepares a reply.

Sender actions are not messages:

• They are not billed and do not count towards your message pool.
• No message is created in the conversation.
• No webhook is sent.
• Your inbox's own unread state is not changed. Marking a message as read for the contact does not mark the conversation as read for your team.

Required Scopes

Scope	Purpose
messages:create	Send read receipts and typing indicators
channels:read	Check which channels support them

Channel Support

Channel	Read receipt	Typing indicator	Can be cleared (off)	Typing lasts
WhatsApp	Yes	Yes (also marks as read)	No	Up to 25 s or until you reply
Messenger	Yes	Yes	Yes	About 20 s
Instagram	Yes	Yes	Yes	About 20 s
Telegram	No	Yes	No	About 5 s
RCS	Yes	Yes	No	About 20 s or until you reply
Live Chat	No	Yes	Yes	Until cleared or until you reply
SMS	No	No	No	—
Email	No	No	No	—
Browser Push	No	No	No	—
Viber	No	No	No	—

Messenger and Instagram only accept sender actions inside the standard 24-hour messaging window.

Always check support at runtime instead of hard-coding this table:

GET /api/v1/channels/sender-actions

curl "https://api.sendseven.com/api/v1/channels/sender-actions" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer s7_api_a1b2c3d4e5f6789012345678abcdef00"

{
  "items": [
    {
      "channel_type": "whatsapp",
      "read": true,
      "typing": true,
      "typing_off": false,
      "typing_ttl_seconds": 25,
      "typing_requires_message": true
    },
    {
      "channel_type": "telegram",
      "read": false,
      "typing": true,
      "typing_off": false,
      "typing_ttl_seconds": 5,
      "typing_requires_message": false
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "total": 10,
    "page": 1,
    "page_size": 10,
    "total_pages": 1,
    "has_next": false,
    "has_prev": false
  }
}

Every channel type is listed; unsupported ones report false. The same object (without channel_type) is returned as sender_actions on GET /channels/{channel_id}/capabilities.

Field	Meaning
read	Read receipts are supported
typing	Typing indicators are supported
typing_off	The indicator can be cleared with state: "off". When false, off is accepted but does nothing; the indicator ends on its own
typing_ttl_seconds	How long one typing call stays visible. null = until cleared or until you reply
typing_requires_message	The platform ties typing to a received message. SendSeven uses the latest inbound message if you don't pass message_id

Mark a Message as Read

POST /api/v1/messages/{message_id}/read

No request body is needed. Only inbound messages (sent by the contact) can be marked as read.

curl -X POST "https://api.sendseven.com/api/v1/messages/f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479/read" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer s7_api_a1b2c3d4e5f6789012345678abcdef00"

{
  "success": true,
  "action": "read",
  "state": null,
  "message_id": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
  "conversation_id": "7c9e6679-7425-40de-944b-e07fc1f90ae7",
  "channel_type": "whatsapp",
  "expires_in_seconds": null,
  "implied_read": false,
  "deduplicated": false
}

Show or Clear a Typing Indicator

POST /api/v1/conversations/{conversation_id}/typing

Request Body (optional)

Field	Type	Required	Description
state	string	No	on (default) or off
message_id	string	No	An inbound message of this conversation to attach the indicator to. Only used where typing_requires_message is true; defaults to the latest inbound message

An empty body is the same as {"state": "on"}.

curl -X POST "https://api.sendseven.com/api/v1/conversations/7c9e6679-7425-40de-944b-e07fc1f90ae7/typing" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer s7_api_a1b2c3d4e5f6789012345678abcdef00" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"state": "on"}'

{
  "success": true,
  "action": "typing",
  "state": "on",
  "message_id": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
  "conversation_id": "7c9e6679-7425-40de-944b-e07fc1f90ae7",
  "channel_type": "whatsapp",
  "expires_in_seconds": 25,
  "implied_read": true,
  "deduplicated": false
}

• expires_in_seconds: when the platform will hide the indicator on its own. Call again before then to keep it visible during a long operation (for example every 4 seconds on Telegram, every 20 seconds on WhatsApp).
• implied_read: true when the indicator also marked the message as read. On WhatsApp a typing indicator always marks the contact's message as read — don't use it if you don't want the contact to see read ticks.
• Sending your reply ends the indicator on every channel; you don't need to send off first.

Repeated Calls & Limits

You don't need to track what you already sent — SendSeven absorbs repeats:

• Read receipts are sent once per message. Marking the same message as read again returns 200 with deduplicated: true and nothing is sent to the channel.
• Typing on is deduplicated. Another on for the same conversation within half of the channel's typing duration (typing_ttl_seconds) returns 200 with deduplicated: true; the indicator is still showing. Refresh it at roughly half the duration to keep it visible continuously.
• Typing off is never deduplicated or limited.
• Rate limit: about 30 read/typing calls per minute per conversation reach the channel. Above that you get 429 sender_action_rate_limited with a Retry-After header (seconds).

deduplicated is false whenever the action was actually sent.

Errors

Errors use a structured detail object:

{
  "detail": {
    "code": "sender_action_not_supported",
    "message": "Read receipts are not supported on this channel.",
    "channel_type": "telegram",
    "action": "read"
  }
}

HTTP	code	When
404	message_not_found	The message doesn't exist, isn't visible to you, or (typing) isn't in this conversation
404	conversation_not_found	The conversation doesn't exist or isn't visible to you
422	sender_action_not_supported	The channel doesn't support this action (see the table above)
422	message_not_inbound	You tried to mark one of your own outbound messages as read
422	no_inbound_message	Typing on a channel that needs a received message, but the conversation has none
422	channel_unavailable	The channel is disconnected or can't be used right now
429	sender_action_rate_limited	More than about 30 calls per minute for this conversation. Wait for Retry-After seconds
502	sender_action_failed	The messaging platform rejected the request (for example outside the 24-hour window on Messenger)

For 502 sender_action_failed, message is a generic, safe description. When the cause is known it may include a short hint (for example that the messaging window has closed). The platform's raw error is never passed through, so don't parse message — branch on code.

Sender actions are best-effort UX signals: treat a failure as non-fatal and send your reply anyway.

Related Guides

• Channel Capabilities & Limits
• Reactions
• Send a Text Message