What does mute do on Kik?
Kik is an amazing social network full of the widest demographic I think I have seen on any platform except Facebook. I think literally everyone is on there, from kids to teens, the young and the old. Given how popular it is, it is inevitable that there will be people messaging you at times when it isn’t convenient. That’s where mute comes in.
Mute on Kik is a polite way of putting all messages or messages for particular people on hold. They are still delivered and can still be read but alerts for them are suppressed. Mute is useful for when you’re taking a call or busy doing something else and don’t want to shut Kik down completely. It is also useful for shutting down annoying people who constantly message you or for getting a bit of peace and quiet for an hour.
You can mute specific chats or all notifications as you see fit, just follow the instructions below.
Mute specific chats on Kik
To mute an individual or specific chat session, do this:
- Press and hold the chat you want to mute (Android) or swipe it left (iOS).
- Tap Mute.
- Select a timescale from an hour, forever, a particular time or until I turn it back on.
This will then mute that person until the timescale you select or until you manually unmute them.
To unmute:
- Press and hold the chat you want to unmute (Android) or swipe it left (iOS).
- Tap unmute.
- Reply or whatever as you see fit.
Once unmuted, you can converse with that person as normal.
Mute all chats on Kik
You can also mute all notifications in Kik which can be useful for taking time away from the app without shutting it down. Again, this will show you as online but won’t pester you with chat notifications.
- Tap the Settings icon within the Kik app.
- Tap Notifications.
- Disable Sound, Vibration and Message Preview.
This will keep Kik running on your device but not notify you of any new messages until you reverse the setting. Which is literally:
- Tap the Settings icon within the Kik app.
- Tap Notifications.
- Enable Sound, Vibration and Message Preview.
The benefit of mute is that the other party does not know they have been muted. They will obviously know something is up as you’re not replying, but the usual R, S and D notifications will appear as usual. A savvy Kik user will know that a faded light gray D means you’re not online but a dark gray D means you’re on Kik but not talking to them. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on.
To be honest, if I want a break from Kik, I find it easier to shut the app down altogether rather than muting it. It’s faster, simpler and shows my friends that I’m offline. It also avoids the awkward ‘why weren’t you answering me’ conversations for friends who see you’re online by not talking to them!
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