You can hide online status on WhatsApp — known as Last Seen — in your Privacy settings.
Choose whether only your contacts or nobody should see your Last Seen status.
You can also choose to exclude certain people from seeing your Last Seen status.
If you use WhatsApp regularly, chances are you’ve spotted the login status next to the name of some of your contacts.
Though WhatsApp makes your online status visible to everyone by default, you can easily change it.
WhatsApp online status
WhatsApp online status allows users to see the last time their contacts were active on the platform and whether they are currently using the app.
When someone is online, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve seen your message — it simply means they’re currently using the app.
Last Seen refers to the last time the person used WhatsApp and also doesn’t mean that they have seen your most recent message. The only way to tell if someone has seen your message is the blue check marks beside the message.
If you don’t want your WhatsApp contacts to know your Last Seen or online status, you can easily hide your status from everyone, make it available to only your contacts, or exclude certain contacts from seeing it through the app’s settings.
Note: When you hide your own WhatsApp online status, you also can’t view other people’s statuses.
The steps to hide your Last Seen or online status on Whatsapp are simple:
1. Open WhatsApp on your phone and head to the settings.
2. Open the account settings, and then head to the privacy settings.
3. Go to the Last Seen settings.
4. Tap either My Contacts, My Contacts Except, or Nobody to choose how you want to hide your Last Seen status.
Here’s the full guide on how to hide your online status on WhatsApp.
How to hide WhatsApp online status
1. Open WhatsApp on your iPhone or Android.
2. Go to your WhatsApp settings.
On iPhone, tap Settings – the gear icon – in the bottom right corner.Tap the gear icon to access WhatsApp’s settings on iPhone.
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On Android, tap the More icon – the three vertical dots – in the top right corner, and then select Settings in the menu.Tap the three vertical dots to access WhatsApp’s settings on Android.
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3. In Settings, tap Account.
4. On the Account page, tap Privacy.
5. Tap Last Seen to change your online status.
Tap “Last Seen.”
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6. You have two options to hide your online or Last Seen status — you can choose for only My Contacts to see your status or for Nobody to see your status.
You can also choose My Contacts Except and select people from your contacts list who you don’t want to see your “Last Seen” status. Then, tap Done in the top right corner on iPhone or the check mark in the bottom right corner on Android.
Note: While hiding your Last Seen means people won’t be able to see when you were last online, it will still show them when you’re currently online.
7. Once you’ve made a selection, your online or Last Seen status will be visible to just your contacts, no one at all, or the contacts you didn’t exclude, depending on your selection.