WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps, with over 2 billion users worldwide. With so many connections on the platform, you may sometimes want to limit what certain people can see about you on WhatsApp.
One common question is whether you can hide your WhatsApp profile photo, status, and other info from specific people without outright blocking them. Thankfully, WhatsApp does give you some options to customize your privacy settings.
Can You Hide Your Profile Photo from Someone on WhatsApp?
Yes, it is possible to hide your profile photo from someone on WhatsApp specifically without blocking them completely. Here are the steps:
- Open WhatsApp and go to the Settings menu (the 3 dots or 3 line icon in the top right)
- Select Settings > Account > Privacy
- Tap on Profile Photo
- You will then see options to show your profile photo to Everyone, My Contacts, or a Custom selection of people
- Tap on Custom to manually choose who can and cannot see your profile photo
- This will open your contacts list – toggle off the specific people you want to hide your profile photo from
By toggling off a contact from this list, you can hide your profile photo from them specifically while leaving it visible to others. They will then see nothing or a default blank icon instead of your profile image.
Hiding Your Status Updates from Someone
In addition to your profile photo, you can also control who sees your status updates on WhatsApp, including text statuses and photos/videos shared as statuses.
The process is very similar:
- Go to Settings > Account > Privacy
- Tap on Status
- Choose the Custom option to manually select who can see your status updates
- Deselect the contacts you want to hide your status from in this list
This will prevent those specific people from viewing any changes to your status in the future. They will instead see nothing where your status should be.
Preventing Someone from Seeing Your Read Receipts
By default, WhatsApp shows read receipts to contacts – this lets people see when you’ve read their messages. If you don’t want certain people to know when you’re reading their messages, you can turn off read receipts for them.
Here’s how:
- Open their chat window in WhatsApp
- Tap on their name at the top and select View Contact
- Disable Read Receipts
Now they will not get read status indicators when you read their messages. You can do this on a per-chat basis for more privacy.
Disabling Your Last Seen Status for Specific Contacts
Along with read receipts, WhatsApp also shows a “last seen” status to indicate when you were last online in the app. You may want to turn this off for certain contacts too.
To do so:
- Go to Settings > Account > Privacy
- Tap on Last Seen
- Select Custom to choose who can see your last seen status
- Uncheck the boxes next to any contacts you want to hide this from
This will prevent those people from knowing the last time you were actively online on WhatsApp.
Disabling Someone’s Ability to See Your About Info
Your WhatsApp profile also includes an “About” section where you can add personal info that all your contacts can see. You likely don’t want everyone reading this, so WhatsApp allows you to configure who can see it.
Just go to Settings > Account > Privacy > About and select Custom to choose who to show your About info to.
Why Would You Want to Hide Your WhatsApp Profile from Someone?
Here are some common reasons you may want to use WhatsApp’s privacy settings to hide your profile details from specific people:
- An ex-partner or someone you want distance from after a breakup
- Old friends or contacts you’ve lost touch with and don’t want accessing your info
- Colleagues at work who you only need basic communication with
- Contacts you don’t know very well and want to remain semi-anonymous
- People who you feel may be obsessive about your online status or read receipts
The ability to customize privacy settings on an individual contact level gives you more control over your boundaries and availability.
Important Things to Note
While these WhatsApp privacy options are useful, be aware that:
- Blocking someone will override any custom privacy settings for them specifically, so avoid outright blocking unless necessary
- Changes to privacy settings can take some time to take effect across the app
- If someone has your number saved in their phone already, they can still see limited profile info about you such as your name and profile photo even if you haven’t shared it with them in WhatsApp
So while not foolproof, adjusting these settings on a per-person basis can help you curate what parts of your WhatsApp profile different contacts can access based on your comfort level with them seeing certain info.
Other Ways to Increase Your WhatsApp Privacy
In addition to hiding your profile and status from specific people, there are some other WhatsApp settings you can tweak for increased privacy:
- Turn off visibility in WhatsApp’s People Nearby feature
- Disable backup to Google Drive if you don’t want chat history stored externally
- Turn off allowing other users to add you to groups without your approval first
- Limit Who Can Call Me to My Contacts Only to avoid unwanted calls
- Disable showing previews of links and media in notifications to prevent others glimpsing content
WhatsApp gives you granular options to limit visibility and engagement – explore Settings > Account > Privacy to see everything you can customize.
Conclusion
Adjusting your WhatsApp privacy settings on a per-contact basis can help you keep some personal details or availability hidden from specific people you’d rather limit info sharing with. This lets you reshape boundaries without fully cutting contact.
Go through your contacts list and think about what level of access feels comfortable with each person, then limit visibility of your profile photo, status, online status, read receipts and other info accordingly. This gives you more control over your privacy within WhatsApp’s wide social network.
While not completely hidden, the customized restrictions can send a signal that you don’t want extensive access given to that person. And that can help preserve your peace of mind and avoid unwanted social obligations through the app.
Just be aware of the limitations, test changes after applying them, and revisit your settings periodically to keep your preferred privacy levels intact. With some prudent adjustments, you can share the right amount with the right people.