If you want to hide your online status on WhatsApp, here’s how to do it. It’s hard to look back and remember a time when the world ran on SMS when it came to sending messages to our friends and contacts. Services like WhatsApp have made chatting with your friends and family easier than ever and full of stickers on WhatsApp.
And with many more options than those provided by an SMS. However, that ease of communication has come at a price. Now we expect to be able to see if the recipient is online and reading the message from him at that very moment.
Unfortunately, we’ve all heard of discussions about whether messages were sent/received/viewed/read. If you want to restore some privacy to your instant messaging, here’s how to hide your online status on WhatsApp.
How to hide your online status on WhatsApp
WhatsApp makes it pretty easy to disable your online status, but there’s a trade-off that we have to accept that we’ll get to later.
For now, to hide your WhatsApp online status, follow the steps below:
- Open WhatsApp.
- Click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner.
- Tap on Settings.
- On the Settings menu, select Account.
- Next, tap Privacy.
- Choose Last Seen from the list of options.
- In the popup window, choose Nobody.
What is the problem with disabling the option to be seen or not seen online? Which plays both ways: disabling your online status means you won’t be able to see other people’s online status either.
Unfortunately, to date, there is also no way to configure the visibility of your online status on a user-by-user basis. For example, it’s impossible for your family and friends to know you’re online and prevent your boss from seeing the same information. The only way to do that is to block them on WhatsApp, but they won’t be able to communicate with each other.
This option is transferred to all instances of WhatsApp, whether on your phone or in the WhatsApp Web version.
Other WhatsApp privacy options
While you’re in the Privacy menu, it’s worth paying attention to a couple of the other WhatsApp privacy options available.
You can restrict the visibility of your profile photo, about page and status. The final configuration is to disable read receipts. Like your online status, disabling read receipts is reciprocal. Disabling yours means you won’t be able to see other people’s receipts.
Maintain your privacy online
It is possible to hide your status in WhatsApp, but by doing so, the app will hide the status of your contacts from you as well. While this can be inconvenient, it’s well worth the price for those who want some control over how and when people can view them online.
