WhatsApp status allows you to share text, photos, videos and GIFs that disappear after 24 hours. By default, your status updates are visible to all of your WhatsApp contacts. However, you can choose to hide your status updates from specific contacts while still keeping them visible to others.
Why would you want to hide your status?
Here are some common reasons for hiding your WhatsApp status from certain contacts:
- Privacy – You may not want some people seeing certain status updates.
- Avoid unwanted attention – Some contacts may view your statuses too frequently or make unnecessary comments.
- Professionalism – Keeping your status hidden from work contacts can be more appropriate.
- Focus – Hiding your status from some people can reduce distractions.
- Control interactions – You can decide who gets access to your statuses and who doesn’t.
How to hide your status from specific contacts
Hiding your status from specific WhatsApp contacts is easy:
- Open WhatsApp and tap on the Settings icon in the bottom right (the 3 dots on Android or the gear icon on iPhone).
- Go to Account > Privacy.
- Tap on Status.
- You will see a list of all your contacts. Tap on the contact you want to hide your status from.
- A toggle will appear next to their name. Switch it off to stop sharing your status with that contact.
- Repeat this for each contact you want to hide your status from.
On Android you can also press and hold on a contact’s name in your chat list and select “Hide status updates” to quickly hide your status from them.
What happens when you hide your WhatsApp status from someone?
When you hide your WhatsApp status from a contact:
- They will no longer be able to view your status updates.
- They won’t see the “typing…” indicator when you are typing a status.
- Your profile picture will appear rather than your status preview in group chats.
- They can still send you messages and call you as normal.
- They won’t receive any notification that you’ve hidden your status.
- You can choose to share your status with them again at any time.
What the contact sees when your status is hidden
When you hide your WhatsApp status from someone, it simply appears as though you don’t have an active status shared. They won’t see your status preview picture in chat and will instead see your profile photo and “online” text.
So hiding your status gives the impression you haven’t updated your status, rather than explicitly hiding it from them. This avoids potentially awkward notifications that you’ve actively hidden it.
Does hiding your status notify the contact?
No, when you hide your WhatsApp status from a contact the person is not notified in any way. They simply stop seeing your status updates, but aren’t told this is because you hid them.
Some key points about hiding status:
- It’s completely invisible to the contact – they get no notification.
- They won’t know their access to your status has changed.
- There are no obvious signs your status is hidden from them.
- You can hide and unhide status without the person being notified.
This avoids any unnecessary social friction that could arise from actively notifying contacts you’ve restricted their status access. It’s handled discreetly.
Can contacts tell if you’ve hidden your status?
Contacts cannot detect that you have hidden your WhatsApp status from them. The whole process is seamless and subtle from their perspective.
Some ways it remains undetectable:
- No notification is sent when you hide or unhide status.
- Your last seen/online time remains visible to them.
- Your profile photo will show rather than a status preview.
- Group chats don’t notify them that you have an active status.
The only way someone could tell is if you confirmed to them directly that you’d hidden your status. Even then, they’d have no way to verify this themselves through WhatsApp.
Can you see who views your WhatsApp status?
Unlike Instagram or Facebook stories, WhatsApp does not show who has viewed your status updates. The views are anonymous.
Some key points about WhatsApp status views:
- You can’t see who specifically has viewed your status.
- It only shows the total number of views.
- Views are always anonymous to protect privacy.
- Hiding your status from someone also hides their view.
- There’s no way to detect if a contact has seen your hidden status.
Not showing specific views prevents contacts from knowing if you’ve seen their status updates too. This adds to the discreet experience.
Troubleshooting hidden status on WhatsApp
If you’ve hidden your WhatsApp status from someone but notice they seem able to view it, here are some things to check:
- Close and reopen WhatsApp in case the status privacy didn’t update.
- Check you toggled the correct contact’s status setting off.
- Make sure you’re using the latest version of WhatsApp.
- Toggle the status privacy setting off and on again for the contact.
- Restart your phone if WhatsApp seems stuck.
- Verify the contact can’t see your status in a group chat.
If these basic troubleshooting steps don’t resolve it, you may need to uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp to reset things. Back up chats first to avoid losing your messages.
Can I hide my last seen time on WhatsApp?
In addition to status, you can also hide your last seen and online time on WhatsApp for more privacy. This is controlled separately from status privacy.
To hide your last seen time from specific contacts:
- Open WhatsApp Settings.
- Go to Account > Privacy.
- Tap on Last Seen/Online.
- Select contacts to hide it from.
This will show your last seen as “Offline” to those contacts. You can choose to show it to Nobody, My Contacts, or Everyone as needed.
Conclusion
Hiding your WhatsApp status from chosen contacts is easy and discreet. The person won’t receive any notification and there are no obvious signs you’ve hidden it.
It remains completely invisible to them, so they won’t be able to tell their access has changed. It simply appears as though you have no active status shared.
This gives you greater control over who sees your updates without social friction. Just be sure to toggle the correct contacts off under Status Privacy to stop them viewing your statuses.