How to Turn Off Last Seen in WhatsApp

The Last Seen feature is helpful to let your friends and contacts know when you were most recently active on the app. But what if you prefer this information to be hidden? Sometimes it’s beneficial for your contacts not to know you’re avoiding their chats. Or maybe you want to check WhatsApp at work quickly but don’t want to worry that it looks like you’re slacking.

Fortunately, turning off the Last Seen feature is possible and doesn’t take long. This article will tell you how to accomplish it on various devices.

Turn off Last Seen on an iPhone

The setting on an iPhone is easy to toggle on and off.

1. Open “Settings” in WhatsApp.
   
2. Go to “Privacy.”
   
3. tap “Last Seen.”
   
4. Choose “Nobody.”
   

It’s as simple as that. Your Last Seen tracking will be disabled until you turn it back on.

Turn off Last Seen on an Android Device

The process for Android is similar to iPhone and just as straightforward.

1. Open WhatsApp and tap “Menu” (the three-dot icon).
   
2. Select “Settings.”
   
3. Choose “Privacy” and then “Last Seen.”
   
4. Set it to “Nobody.”
   

As with an Apple device, this will turn off Last Seen on your Android until you re-enable it.

Turn Off Last Seen for Other Devices via WhatsApp Settings

No matter your device, you can always go through the WhatsApp settings to turn off Last Seen. This is especially helpful if you’re running WhatsApp on a desktop computer.

1. Open WhatsApp and open the “Settings” menu.
   
2. Choose “Privacy.”
   
3. Scroll down to the options “Last Seen & Online.”
   
4. Under the “Who Can See My Last Seen” menu, you can choose different options to customize who can view your Last Seen status.
   

You may also notice the available option to control who can see when you’re online. Users report varying degrees of success with this option, so be aware that it may or may not work to block people from seeing your online status.

How Do I Turn Last Seen Back On?

Turning it on is as easy as turning it off. Most of the time, having your Last Seen status showing may be fine. But with these easy steps, you can turn it off whenever you need to be stealthy for a little while.

For iPhone:

1. Open the “Settings” menu in WhatsApp.
   
2. Tap “Account” and then “Privacy.”
   
3. In the Privacy menu, tap “Last Seen.”
   
4. Choose the audience who can view your status through Last Seen.
   

For Android:

1. In WhatsApp, tap the “Menu.”
   
2. Open “Settings.”
   
3. Choose “Privacy” and select “Last Seen.”
   
4. Select who you want to be able to view your Last Seen status.
   

Feel free to turn it on and off as necessary. There is no limit to how much or how often you can toggle the Last Seen option.

The Benefit of Turning Last Seen Off on Devices

Although others can still see if you’re typing or online, there is still a benefit to turning off WhatsApp’s Last Seen aspect. While Last Seen is enabled, your chat windows will display the last time you had WhatsApp open. At the bottom of each chat is a note such as “Last seen today at 2:30 PM.” This gives more information to others than you might want them to have.

When you turn it off, you won’t have to worry that someone is offended that you were online and didn’t respond to their chat. You also won’t have a time stamp on the last time you opened the app while you were supposed to be doing something else. It’s a nice feature, but also excellent that you can turn it off.

Why Can’t I See Someone Else’s Last Seen

You might not see a “Last Seen” message at the bottom of someone else’s chat for several reasons.

• You might have Last Seen disabled. If it is turned off, you cannot see anyone else’s Last Seen too.
• They might have privacy settings that prevent the information from being public.
• You have never chatted with them before.
• They might have blocked you.
• You may not mutually have each other as saved contacts. To view Last Seen, you must have saved them as a contact, and they must have also saved you as a contact.

Downsides to Turning off Last Seen

While hiding your activity on WhatsApp is helpful sometimes, you should know that switching it off affects a few other things.

• If you turn off Last Seen for yourself, it will also turn it off for your contacts. Therefore you will not be able to track when your friends are on WhatsApp through the Last Seen feature.
• If you are currently online, there is no way to hide your status on WhatsApp. Even if Last Seen is off, you still appear online.
• If you are in the act of typing, you also can’t hide your WhatsApp status. Anyone in a chat with you will see that you are typing in that chat.

Other WhatsApp Privacy Features

Besides turning off your Last Seen stamps, the platform has other features that you may find useful.

• You can select which contacts can see your profile picture.
• You can be selective about who can view your “About” info.
• Status updates can be withheld from groups of people.
• You can choose whether read receipts are generated when you open a chat. Be aware that through the specific chat menu, other users can look at information from your conversation to see how long it’s been since you viewed the discussion.
• You can prevent people from being able to add you to Groups.
• You can silence specific contacts, both from messaging and from calls. If you don’t want to make the severe move of blocking someone but you also don’t want to see notifications about them, silencing them is a helpful alternative.

Customizable privacy settings help you craft your WhatsApp experience to your preferences. Just remember that if you turn off an option like read receipts, you also won’t receive read receipts from others.

FAQs

If a contact was Last Seen recently, why haven’t they responded to my chat?

Just because a contact has a recent Last Seen time stamp does not mean they’ve seen your specific chat. This feature only tracks that they have WhatsApp open, and it could even be open in the background.

Who can see my Last Seen if I select “Everyone” in the settings?

While it may sound like everyone in the world can view your Last Seen updates, this isn’t the case. Only those you saved as contacts or have called or messaged before can see your Last Seen and Online status.

WhatsApp Last Seen Feature

Fortunately, toggling your WhatsApp Last Seen option is quick and fairly easy and allows you anonymity when you want it. Users may appreciate the feature, but it’s also nice that you have the option to turn it off.

Do you regularly toggle the Last Seen feature on and off? Or is it more convenient to keep it off? Tell us in the comments section below.