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It’s hard to look back and remember a time when the world operated on SMS. Services like WhatsApp have made chatting with your friends and family easier than ever.
However, that ease of communication has come at a price. We now expect to be able to see whether the recipient is online and reading your messages at that very moment.
Unfortunately, we’ve all heard of arguments breaking out over whether messages were sent/received/seen/read. If you’d like to restore a bit of privacy to your instant messaging, here’s how to hide your online status on WhatsApp…
How to Hide Your Online Status in WhatsApp
WhatsApp makes it fairly straightforward to disable your online status, but there’s a trade-off which we’ll discuss later in the article.
For now, to hide your WhatsApp online status, follow the steps below:
- Open WhatsApp.
- Click on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner.
- Tap on Settings.
- From the Settings menu, select Account.
- Next, tap on Privacy.
- Choose Last Seen from the list of options.
- In the pop-up window, choose Nobody.
So, what about that trade-off? By disabling your online status, it means you will not be able to see other people’s online status either. It prevents people from snooping on other users while simultaneously masking their own actions.
Sadly, there’s also no way to set the visibility of your online status on a user-by-user basis. For example, it’s impossible to let your family and friends know that you’re online while stopping your boss from seeing the same information.
Other WhatsApp Privacy Options to Change
While you’re in the Privacy menu, it’s worth paying attention to a couple of the other WhatsApp privacy options that are available.
You can also restrict the visibility of your profile photo, about page, and status. The final setting is to disable read receipts. Like your online status, disabling read receipts is reciprocal. Disabling yours means that you won’t be able to see receipts from other people.
To learn more about using WhatsApp, here are some essential WhatsApp tips and tricks
9 Essential WhatsApp Tips and Tricks You Should Know
9 Essential WhatsApp Tips and Tricks You Should Know
Here are some essential WhatsApp tips and tricks you may not know exist. But once you do, you’re likely to make use of them.
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you need to know.