How to hide your online status on WhatsApp

WhatsApp has become the standard application to communicate with everyone. Family, friends, acquaintances, and even companies can be contacted via WhatsApp, there are even some companies that use it as an internal communication channel. In practice, this means that we share our time and data on WhatsApp with many people. And they are not always people we know.

WhatsApp is gradually incorporating improvements to help you protect yourself from disrespectful or annoying contacts. Or to simply hide certain information on your WhatsApp account from whoever you do not want to see it. You do not need to justify it. You have the right to do so. For example, you can choose who can see your profile picture, your description, your status, when you were last online, or if you are online.

This last point is important. There is an unwritten rule that if someone is online, you can start a conversation. Or continue the one you had pending. So, if you are busy or do not want to talk to anyone, hiding your online status will save you from unwelcome, annoying, or impertinent conversations.

How to remove the 'online' status on WhatsApp

Before explaining how we can remove the 'online' label from WhatsApp, we should remember what exactly it means that someone is online. In the official WhatsApp help, it says that "if a contact is online, it means that the user has WhatsApp open in the foreground on the device and has an Internet connection. However, that does not mean that the contact has seen your message".

Along with the 'online' label in WhatsApp, another important label that you can hide in WhatsApp is the last seen one. Both labels give a clue to your contacts if you are right now in front of WhatsApp or if you were looking at it recently. Hiding both indicators from certain contacts will avoid problems and untimely conversations. In addition, you can hide and reactivate these labels whenever you want.

To not appear online on WhatsApp you have to do the following:

1. Open WhatsApp and go to Settings.
2. In Settings, go to Account.
3. Under Account, go to Privacy.
4. Under Privacy, you will see Last time and Online. Tap on this option.
5. Within this menu, you can choose who sees your last seen time and if you are online.

Under Who can see when I am online, you have two options to choose from:

• Everyone: this means that everyone can see your online status.
• Same as last time online: your online status will look the same as the last connection.

This means that if you want to hide the WhatsApp 'Online' indicator you will have to do so by also changing the time you were last connected.

1. We go back to Last Time and Online, under Privacy, within Settings and
2. Check the option Same as last connected time.
3. At the top, check one of the options: My contacts, My contacts, except..., or Nobody.

If you choose Nobody, nobody from WhatsApp will see either your last connection or if you are online.

If you opt for My contacts, only your contacts will see your last connection and whether you are online.

With My contacts, except..., you can choose which contacts will no longer see if you are online and your last connection. The rest of the contacts will see this information.

From now on, you can choose who can see if you are online on WhatsApp. At the same time, they will see, or not, your last connection time. You can change this setting whenever you want. However. Keep in mind that if you do not let others see your last connection and if you are online, you will not see that information from others either.

Another important detail. Even if someone can not see if you are online, if you already have a conversation with this person, they will be able to see when you are typing. This person will not see what you type or who you are talking to, but they will see something like "X is typing...".