If someone did not save your phone number in their contacts, they will not be able to view your WhatsApp status updates.
WhatsApp’s status privacy settings allow you to control who can see your status – either everyone, all your contacts, or contacts you select. Since someone who doesn’t have your number saved is not in your contacts, they will not have access to view your status.
How WhatsApp Status Privacy Settings Work
WhatsApp gives you three options for sharing your status updates:
My Contacts – Your status updates will only be visible to the contacts who have your phone number saved in their address book.
My Contacts Except… – You can exclude specific contacts from seeing your status updates, even if they have your number saved.
Only Share With… – Select individual contacts who you want to share your status with.
These settings allow you to customize exactly who gets access to view your status updates.
Someone who doesn’t have your number saved in their contacts will automatically be excluded from seeing your status.
Reasons Why Someone May Not Have Your Number Saved
There are a few common reasons why someone may try to view your
WhatsApp status without having your phone number saved in their contacts:
- They got your phone number recently and haven’t added you to their address book yet.
- You gave them your number a while ago but they forgot to save it.
- They accidentally deleted your contact information from their phone.
- You have each other’s numbers for work purposes but not saved personally.
- They are trying to discreetly view your status updates without you knowing.
Regardless of the reason, if someone doesn’t have you saved as a contact, WhatsApp’s status privacy settings prevent them from viewing your updates.
Ways for Unsaved Contacts to View Your Status
While WhatsApp’s default settings block people who don’t have your number from seeing your status, there are some workaround ways an unsaved contact can potentially view your updates:
Save your number in their contacts – This grants them access according to your privacy settings.
View your status on someone else’s phone – If someone you allow to view your status is with the unsaved contact, they can show them your updates.
Take screenshots – Recipients can take screenshots of your status and share them with unsaved contacts.
However, the only surefire way an unsaved contact can view your status is by saving your number in their phone’s address book. As long as they don’t have your number saved, your privacy settings will keep your status updates hidden from them.
How to Keep Your Status Completely Private
If you want to ensure only certain people can view your WhatsApp status, here are some tips:
- Set your status to be viewable by “Only Share With” and manually select each contact.
- Frequently review your contact list and remove anyone you don’t want seeing your status.
- Ask trusted contacts not to share or screenshot your status updates.
- Turn off “Read Receipts” so you can’t see who views your status.
- Change your privacy settings to “My Contacts Except” to block specific people.
- Delete any contacts you don’t know very well or who you don’t fully trust.
Using these methods in combination gives you the maximum control over who can view and access your WhatsApp status updates.
What Happens When You View Someone Else’s Status
When you view someone else’s status updates on WhatsApp, they won’t receive an automatic notification about it like they would with a message. However, there are couple ways they can find out if you’ve viewed their status:
Read receipts – If they have read receipts enabled, they’ll be able to see if you’ve opened their status update.
Viewed by list – In their own status screen, they can see a list of who has viewed their updates.
So while it’s not completely secretive, viewing someone’s status is a bit more discreet than directly messaging them. If you want to be extra cautious, you can temporarily turn off read receipts in your WhatsApp settings when viewing statuses.
Troubleshooting Problems Viewing Statuses
If you are having issues viewing someone’s WhatsApp status updates, here are some troubleshooting tips:
- Make sure you have an active internet connection.
- Force close and restart the WhatsApp app.
- Update WhatsApp to the latest version.
- Check your status privacy settings and contacts list.
- Verify the contact has not blocked you.
- Clear the app cache and data and re-login.
- Uninstall and reinstall WhatsApp.
- Try viewing status on desktop WhatsApp web.
If none of those help, contact the person whose status you’re trying to view and ask them to confirm their privacy settings. They may need to update their settings to allow you to view their status updates.
Status Updates Compared to Other WhatsApp Features
WhatsApp status occupies an interesting space between direct messaging and social media posts. Here’s how it compares to some other WhatsApp features:
Messaging – Statuses are more public than private messages, but more fleeting and temporary.
Calls – You can’t communicate back and forth with statuses like on a call, but statuses let you share visuals.
Groups – Group statuses only appear to other group members, while your personal status goes to your contacts.
Stories – Very similar to Snapchat or Instagram stories, but limited to WhatsApp contacts rather than public.
Overall, status updates give you a lightweight, casual way to share moments without the permanence of messaging or social media posts.
They offer more flexibility to share different sides of yourself with different friend groups.
It is not possible for someone to view your WhatsApp status if they don’t have your phone number saved in their contacts.
WhatsApp’s status privacy settings prevent unsaved numbers from accessing your updates. The only way around this is for the person to add your number to their address book.
While workarounds like screenshots are possible, ultimately your status privacy comes down to who is in your contacts list.
Carefully managing your contacts and status settings gives you control over who can view your WhatsApp status updates.
