If the profile picture of a contact is suddenly no longer visible in WhatsApp, there can be several reasons. You can find out what these are here.
If another person’s WhatsApp profile picture is no longer visible, there is not necessarily a malicious intent behind it. Because there are many possible reasons for this. Here you will not only find out why this can be, but also how you can protect your own profile photo from prying eyes.
Therefore, your contact’s WhatsApp profile picture is not visible
If the profile picture of one of your contacts is not visible in WhatsApp, this indicates that the other person has blocked you. If this is the case, the messenger also denies you access to the status messages, the online status and the information of your contact.
But if, for example, the status or information of the other person is still visible in WhatsApp but the profile picture is not, you can be sure that your contact is not blocking you. In this case, they’ve either removed their profile photo entirely from Messenger, or you’ve fallen victim to their privacy settings.
In connection with the latter option, the missing photo can also indicate that your contact has not saved your phone number in their phone book. This is the case, for example, if the other person has just changed their smartphone and has not yet synchronized their contact list, or if they have deleted your number on purpose.
How to hide your own profile picture
To ensure that your own profile picture is not visible to all contacts in your phone book, configure WhatsApp’s data protection settings accordingly. Both on iOS and on an Android smartphone, you will find this within the Messenger app under “Settings > Data protection”.
If you tap on “Profile picture” there, you have the following four options to choose from:
- “Everyone”: Anyone who has your phone number can see your photo.
- “My Contacts”: Your profile picture is visible to all WhatsApp users whose number you have saved in your own contact list.
- “My contacts except…”: Identical to the previous option, except that you can select exceptions from your phone book that the application denies access to your profile photo.
- “Nobody”: Your profile picture is not visible to everyone without exception. Only you have access to it.
Similar settings can also be defined in the “Privacy” area for your online status, your status messages and your profile information.
