How To How To Hide Last Seen On WhatsApp From Everybody Or Specific Contacts

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WhatsApp can be found on any and every smartphone.

That’s the popularity of this instant messaging app. With this high usage, users should also take care of their privacy. There are several privacy settings provided by WhatsApp that you can configure according to your requirement.

In this guide, we cover how you can control who can see your personal information on WhatsApp.

We will specifically let you know how to hide last seen on WhatsApp from all or specific contacts.

Hide Last Seen, Profile Photo, And About In WhatsApp

Step 1 – Open WhatsApp on your smartphone and go to Settings. On Android tap on 3 dots and select Settings while on iPhone, simply tap Settings.

WhatsApp Privacy Settings

Step 2 – Inside Settings, select Account, and then Privacy.

Step 3 – Here is the place where you can manage your Last Seen, Profile Photo, Status, and About.

Hiding Last Seen –  On Selecting Last Seen you will have 3 options i.e. Everyone, My contacts, and Nobody to choose from.

Hide Last Seen, Profile Photo and Status in WhatsApp

As it is clear from their names depending on the option you choose Last Seen will be shown to those groups of people.

If you want to hide it from people who are not in your Contact List then Select the option ‘My Contacts‘  then only your contacts will be able to view your Last Seen.

In case you want to hide Last Seen from people in your Contact List too then you may choose ‘Nobody‘ then your Last Seen won’t be shown to anyone.

Note: You too will not be able to view their Last Seen if you are hiding yours.

Hiding Profile Photo – In Privacy if you select Profile Photo you will get the same 3 options you got for Last Seen. You can select the option depending on the group of people with whom you want to share your picture.

Hiding About – For Hiding About you need to select About in Privacy and go on selecting the desired option as in Hiding Profile Photo or Last Seen.

For status, there are a few different options. Unlike the other three pieces of personal information, Status is only shown to your contacts by default. So, we have a different section for it.

Hide WhatsApp Status From Specific Contacts

As WhatsApp online status is shown to all your contacts by default, what if you only want to show it to particular people or hide it from certain contacts.

There are 2 ways with which you can achieve it. One is from the WhatsApp Settings (like above) and another way is under the Status tab on Android and iOS apps.

First Method

  • For the first method, you need to follow the same steps in the section above: WhatsApp > Settings > Account > Privacy > Status.
  • Now, it makes sense to choose My Contacts Except… if there are only a few contacts from whom you want to hide your online status updates and select Only Share With… if there are only a few people to whom you wish to show your WhatsApp status update.
  • After making the desired selection, select the Contacts from the list and tap Done.Hide WhatsApp status from specific contacts

That is all there is to it! You can always unhide them whenever desired by going to the same location and unchecking those contacts and saving the changes by tapping Done.

Important: Please note that the changes you make in the WhatsApp Status privacy settings won’t affect the online status updates you have posted already i.e. they will still be seen by all the contacts or according to the privacy setting you had while posting that update. It will apply from the point of time you save the setting.

Second Method

  •  Open WhatsApp and select the Status tab.WhatsApp Status Update on iPhone Android
  • Android users need to tap on the three vertical dots at the top right corner and select Status privacy. iPhone and iPad users can tap on Privacy at the top left corner.Show WhatsApp Status to Specific FriendsWhatsApp Status Privacy Settings

Next, you can follow the steps from Way 1 above. They remain the same.

Speaking of Last Seen, Profile Photo, or About, you can only hide them from people who don’t have your contact number by selecting Contacts or hide it from everyone by choosing Nobody.

There’s nothing in between like for online status. But you can use a small tweak mentioned below in order to hide last seen from specific people.

How To Hide Last Seen On WhatsApp For Specific Contacs

Whether you are using iPhone, Android Phone, or Windows Phone the method is the same, you can achieve this with the simple steps mentioned below:

  1. Go to WhatsApp Privacy Settings following the method given above.
  2. Select Last Seen and set it to My Contacts. This will hide the Last Seen for users who are not on your contact list.
  3. Next, you have to delete the desired people from your contacts for whom you want to hide last seen.

That’s it, now those specific contacts will not be able to see your last seen however you can see their last seen status if they haven’t disabled the last seen from their Privacy Settings.

READ ALSO: WhatsApp is working slow? 

Using a similar way those specific contacts will also not be able to see profile photos and About. All you have to do is choose Profile Photo and About instead of Last seen and set them to My Contacts as well.

Benefits of hiding last seen or other info from specific people on WhatsApp:

  • The specific contact will not be able to see your last seen status in WhatsApp.
  • You might still be able to see their last seen status.

Final Words

Hope you are easily able to hide your personal information including online status from everyone or specific people on WhatsApp.

Just remember that there are still methods one can use to see if you are online on WhatsApp as well as your other private info.

If you have any questions or issues, tell us in the comments!

About The Author

  • Akshay Thapliyal

    Akshay Thapliyal is the co-founder of TechUntold and mainly looks into strategic planning at TechUntold. He also loves writing articles on apps & problems he faces related to tech. Follow him on Twitter.

Photo of author

Akshay Thapliyal

Akshay Thapliyal is the co-founder of TechUntold and mainly looks into strategic planning at TechUntold. He also loves writing articles on apps & problems he faces related to tech. Follow him on Twitter.

16 thoughts on “How To How To Hide Last Seen On WhatsApp From Everybody Or Specific Contacts”

  1. Deleting contacts means deleting form phone book.. As I could find option to delete contact from contact list in WhatsApp.

    Reply
  2. Reg last seen, as I did all the above wt u said..If it s n wts app caling list..is it show ma last seen to particular person

    Reply
    • See you have to select My Contacts option under Privacy->Last seen. And then whether that particular contact is there in your WhatsApp contact list or not. If it is there in the WhatsApp contact list, then remove it, no need to remove from phone-book. And the person will not be able to see your last seen.

      Reply
  3. How can I allow only certain contacts to see my “Last Seen”? I have too many contacts to delete.
    Will your suggestion be applicable to both iPhone & Blackberry?

    Reply

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