Whatsapp to let users hide ‘last seen’ status from specific contacts

April 17: After rolling out emoji reactions, in a latest development, Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly adding the option to hide your ‘Last Seen’ status from specific contacts. At present, the chat platform allows a user to pick between not showing anyone your status or only to numbers in your phone book. “Last seen” tells you when a user last checked their app. It allows senders to guess whether you might have seen a message, even if read receipts are turned off.

With the latest beta release of its iOS app, WhatsApp has added an option that allows users to limit specific individuals from seeing their “Last Scene” status, according to WABetaInfo. If you are not familiar with that part of WhatsApp, it is the feature that indicates when someone last checked the app, and it is a way to find out if a contact may have potentially seen your message even if they have read receipts turned off, reports Engadget.

If you’re a beta user, you can find the new feature in the Settings > Account > Privacy > Last Seen / Profile Photo / About, and you might find a new option called “My Contacts Except…”. It was rolled out for beta Android users a few weeks ago but it’s now also being released for beta iOS users. With the feature now in beta testing on both Android and iOS, it will not be long until it is officially available on WhatsApp, stated a report.