# How does "publish read state" work?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [August 28, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986 "2019-08-28T05:13:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@carlokok](https://meta.discourse.org/u/carlokok)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/1 "2019-08-28T05:13:34Z")
I saw a commit for " Publish read state on group messages" ([FEATURE: Publish read state on group messages. (Originally introduced in #7989) by romanrizzi · Pull Request #8025 · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/8025)); can someone explain what this does?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2019, 7:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/2 "2019-08-28T07:48:43Z")
We are still working on the feature, it essentially allows you to keep track of which messages have been read by a group you belong to (opt in)
We are still refining, will make a proper announcement once done
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### Author:  [@downey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/downey)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2020, 4:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/3 "2020-02-20T16:58:32Z")
Was this ever announced or explained anywhere? I still am not confident in how it works, but I would like to be. 🙂
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/4 "2020-02-21T01:04:48Z")
Hmmmm I am not sure if we ever made an #feature:announcements topic about this, we should @Roman did we have any documentation about the feature on meta.
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### Author:  [@Roman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Roman)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/5 "2020-02-28T20:16:01Z")
Done here:
> [@Publish group read state](https://meta.discourse.org/t/publish-group-read-state/142927):
>
> When in a group, knowing if another user reads a message can be quite useful. A couple of months ago we added the experimental “Publish read state” feature, which after a lot of tweaks is now ready to be safely used. As you may have noticed, this shows who read which post. It adds a new icon and the reader’s count just before the likes: [Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 15.03.02] If you click the icon, you can also see the reader’s avatars (it works the same way that likes). You will only count as a…
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### Author:  [@Roman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Roman)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-does-publish-read-state-work/126986/6 "2020-02-28T20:16:06Z")