Skip to main content
Question

WhatsApp Coexistence marking messages as read automatically after enabling automation

  • July 17, 2026
  • 1 comment
  • 31 views
eusouojoaopaulo

I connected my WhatsApp number to ManyChat using Coexistence, keeping the Business App active on my phone alongside the automation.

After activating a flow (tested with both Default Reply and a keyword-triggered automation), incoming messages from customers started showing up as already read on my phone, even though I hadn't opened the conversation. This happened even with messages that didn't match any keyword.

When I disabled the automations, the behavior stopped. Messages went back to showing as unread until I opened them manually.

I've seen a couple of other threads here mentioning similar symptoms after connecting via Coexistence, so I'm trying to understand:

  • Is this expected behavior tied to how Coexistence syncs read status between the app and the Cloud API?
  • Or is it specific to how ManyChat processes incoming messages?
  • Is there any setting that prevents this?

This is a real problem for my daily workflow since I can no longer tell which conversations I've actually responded to. Any insight from someone who's run into this or found a workaround would help a lot.

    1 reply

    SumGenius
    Forum|alt.badge.img
    • SumGenius
    • Smooth talker
    • July 17, 2026

    This one isn't really a ManyChat bug you can toggle off, it's how WhatsApp Coexistence works.

    Coexistence keeps a permanent two-way sync between the Cloud API and your WhatsApp Business App. When the automation processes and replies to an incoming message through the API, that message gets marked read on the API side, and the two-way sync mirrors that read state straight back to your Business App. So it shows read on your phone even though you never opened it. No ManyChat setting stops it, because the read status is being synced at the WhatsApp platform level, not set by ManyChat.

    The realistic fix is to stop using read/unread as your "needs a human" signal, since Coexistence will always mark them read, and track it inside the automation instead:
    - Tag conversations that got an automated reply separately from ones that need a human, and build your review queue off that tag, not the unread dot.

    - Add a handoff step so when a conversation needs you, it tags it (or pings you) and drops it into a "needs review" segment you can filter to.

    That way it doesn't matter that the phone marks everything read, your to-do list lives in the tags. 

    Community Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement