If you’re the type who tends to respond to WhatsApp messages at your own pace, you probably don’t want people to know when you’re logged into the app and when you’re gone. WhatsApp’s ‘Last Seen’ feature lets you know when the person logged in, which gives a certain amount of control over the user and, for some, can become a way of feeling obligated to respond.
Sometimes, some people use this function with their partners, parents, with their children, to know if they stay up late at night, etc. However, for privacy reasons, it is very simple to remove this feature and make it invisible when you are not online. Of course, in case you didn’t know, just as you have your right to do this, you lose the right to see the last seen of the rest of the people.
How to Hide Your Last Seen on WhatsApp
- To get started, tap the three dots icon in the right corner of the app. Go to ‘Settings’ (Whether you’re using iOS or Android, the Settings menu will be the same.)
- Go to the Account > Privacy section.
- Select the ‘Last Seen’ tab. By default, the Last Seen tab will say “Everyone” when you first open it. Tap to open the list of other options.
- Select ‘ Nobody ‘. And that’s it, they can no longer act as detectives with you.
Now, only you can see your last seen on WhatsApp but you won’t see others last seen. It is a fair trade-off.
This function is one of the many that the instant messaging application offers its users to personalize the platform according to their preferences and protect their privacy. In fact, in this sense, there is also the possibility of removing the blue check from messages so that your contacts do not know if you have read their messages or not. In line with the above, it will allow you greater freedom when responding, but you will not be able to know if they have read yours.
However, in the technology sector, there are all kinds of tricks to bypass these ‘rules’. For example, a user can know if another has read their messages or not, if they share a common group and in this one, they have read them, because even if the check is deactivated, it is information that inevitably appears in WhatsApp groups.
In the worst case, the last seen of one of your contacts may not appear on WhatsApp, not because they have deactivated it, but because they have blocked you. In this case, you will have to find out if the person has blocked you by looking at whether his profile picture appears or if you can call him through the application, if you can add him to a group or if a single check appears when you send a message on their conversation.
Read: How to Hide your WhatsApp Chats from Chat Screen.