Do you want to chat on WhatsApp in ninja mode? Modifying WhatsApp privacy options you can hide your photo, when you last contacted, but there is a fact that is more elusive: if you are online on WhatsApp at that moment.
WhatsApp does not allow you to hide when you are connected, although there are a number of tricks that you can take into account to bypass the problem. We tell you how the online indicator works and what you can do to hide that you are online in specific cases.
How the “online” indicator works
To know how to hide the status of “online” from WhatsApp, we must first know how it works exactly. WhatsApp consider someone to be online while the app is in use. At that point, your account shows the status of “online” for everyone, whether they are contacts or complete strangers. It is a public state, so that everyone can see it.
WhatsApp consider that someone stops being online when the application closes by itself, either naturally due to the mobile battery saving system or because you have forced it to close from the recent view. If you close WhatsApp manually, the online status disappears automatically. If you don’t, it may take about ten minutes from when you stop using WhatsApp until you appear offline to other people.
Message when the other person is online (left) and when he is not with last connection time active (center) and deactivated (right) —
Now, what other people see when you are offline depends on other privacy settings, last connection time. The last connection time is not forcibly public, but from the WhatsApp privacy settings you can choose whether it is visible to everyone, to your contacts or to no one.
If you have the last connection time disabledAs soon as your WhatsApp goes offline, nothing is displayed under your name. If you have it activated and that person has permission to see it, then they will see what time you were last connected.
How to hide the last connection time
The concepts of last connection time and online and it is that, although they are similar, they are also different. As we mentioned before, today the online status is visible to everyone while you are connected, while at the last connection time you have the last word.
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If you want hide last connection time, you can do it easily from the WhatsApp settings, entering the section of Privacy, tapping on Last hour time and changing the setting to No one.
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This will prevent whoever sees your WhatsApp from knowing what time you last connected, but they will continue to see if you are online if right at that moment you are using WhatsApp. If you want to hide that you are online, then you must also hide the time of the last connection or otherwise anyone will be able to know when you last connected.
How to hide when you are connected in WhatsApp
The problem is that WhatsApp it does not allow you to hide that you are connected in its settings, which has generated a whole series of applications designed to spy on anyone’s WhatsApp, noting what time they got online and disconnected.
The line status is public yes or yes, so it can be consulted with apps and websites —
With this in mind, there are still a number of things you can do to hide being online. Neither option is totally satisfactory, but considering that WhatsApp does not include the option, they are better than nothing.
Hide online for some contacts
If you block someone, they will not see that you are connected but they will also stop seeing your profile picture and the messages they send will not double tick and will never reach you —
If you want to hide that you are connected to a specific person and not to everyone, your only alternative is block said person. WhatsApp does not notify the other person that you have blocked them, although there are a number of fairly clear indications they can continue to find out.
For example, the messages they will never get a double tick and your profile picture will stop showing. It is therefore a bit suspicious method and has the side effect that if that person writes to you while they have you blocked, you will never receive the messages, not even if you unblock them later.
If it’s someone you don’t talk to or are interested in what they can tell you, you can easily block someone using the ⋮ menu, tapping on More and choosing To block. Pulse To block in the notice that is displayed. While that person is blocked, they will not be able to see that you are connected, but they can continue to use third-party tools (or someone else’s mobile with WhatsApp) to verify it.
Hide online for everyone
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If you want to hide that you are connected to everyone, the closest thing you can do is use the airplane mode of the mobile when you go to open the application to reply to a message. That is, let all your messages enter WhatsApp and when you want to reply to them, close WhatsApp, activate airplane mode, open WhatsApp again and write the answer.
Then, close WhatsApp by removing it from the recent view and turn off airplane mode. The message you have written will be sent as soon as WhatsApp recovers the connection, without ever being shown as connected to the other person. Obviously, if a message reaches someone, they will know that you were online, but they will not see your status and may think that the message was sent earlier.
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