When you put up a status on WhatsApp, it allows your contacts to view short personal updates for 24 hours. Your status is visible to all contacts by default unless you change the privacy setting. It disappears after 24 hours and a new status space becomes available.
Who can view your WhatsApp status
By default, your status is visible to all your contacts who have your number saved on their phones. You can change this privacy setting and limit your status visibility to select contacts. Here are the status privacy options on WhatsApp:
- My Contacts: Your status will be visible to all your contacts.
- My Contacts Except: Your status will be visible to all contacts except those you exclude.
- Only Share With: You can select particular contacts to view your status.
To change the privacy settings, go to WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy > Status. Select the option you prefer. If you choose ‘My Contacts Except’, you’ll be able to search and select specific contacts to exclude from seeing your status.
Status content options
You can set a text status, add emojis or use preset shortcuts like ‘Battery about to die’, ‘In a meeting’, etc. Apart from text, you can also use the following content formats for your status on WhatsApp:
- Photos & Videos: Directly capture or upload photos and videos up to 30 seconds to your status.
- Voice Messages: Record and share voice messages up to 30 seconds on your status.
- Contacts, Location, Polls: You can share contacts, locations and polls on your WhatsApp status for 24 hours.
- GIFs: Search for and add animated GIFs to express yourself.
- Text Formatting: Make your text status stand out with bold, italics, strikethrough and monospace formatting.
How long does a WhatsApp status last?
Any status content you share on WhatsApp, whether text, photos, videos, voice messages, etc. will automatically disappear after 24 hours. Your contacts can view your updated status for 24 hours only. After that, the status is deleted automatically from the app and server.
The 24-hour limit helps keep statuses short-lived, timely and relevant. It maintains user privacy and saves storage space on phones and servers by auto-deleting old statuses.
Who can see when you’ve seen their status
By default, when you view someone’s status, the sender receives a single tick indicating you’ve seen it. If you don’t want senders to know when you’ve seen their status, you can disable status read receipts.
To disable read receipts for status updates, go to WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy and turn off ‘Read Receipts’. This will stop senders from knowing when you’ve seen their statuses. However, disabling read receipts also stops you from knowing if recipients have seen your messages and statuses.
Replying to status updates
While viewing someone’s status, you can swipe up to reveal a text box that allows you to reply to that status. This opens a private chat with the person where you can type your reply. They will receive your message like any other WhatsApp text message.
Replying to statuses allows you to provide quick feedback, make plans or have a conversation about the update. It avoids publicly commenting under the status like you would on a social media post.
Status reactions
Similar to messaging reactions, you can now quickly react to a status with 8 emojis – thumbs up, heart, face with tears of joy, face with open mouth, crying face, folded hands, clapping hands and celebration emoji.
To react, long press on a contact’s status and select your preferred emoji from the reaction tray. The reaction will be visible to the status sender, but not publicly displayed.
Viewing status updates
To view status updates from your contacts, tap on the Status tab in your WhatsApp chats list. You will see the profile icons of contacts who have put up a status recently. Tap on any icon to view their latest status update.
You can tap through multiple status updates from the same contact. Swipe left to view the next status or right to see the previous one. Statuses appear in chronological order from newest to oldest.
Status privacy and security
WhatsApp offers privacy settings and tools to let you control your status audience:
- Limit status visibility to selected contacts or exclude specific people.
- Mute a contact’s status updates for 24 hours, 8 hours or always.
- Block a contact so they can’t view your status or see when you’ve seen theirs.
- Report statuses that violate WhatsApp policies or terms of service.
- Statuses are end-to-end encrypted and not visible to anyone outside your WhatsApp contacts.
Furthermore, statuses automatically disappear after 24 hours for privacy. And WhatsApp does not back up statuses to Google Drive or iCloud.
Status updates when phone is off
Your status continues to update even when your phone is switched off. This is because WhatsApp statuses sync across devices linked to your account. So if you’ve set up WhatsApp on a secondary phone or WhatsApp Web, your status will remain visible to contacts from those devices when your primary phone is offline.
Deleting WhatsApp status
There are two ways to delete your WhatsApp status before the 24-hour limit:
- Tap on the My Status tab in your chat list, tap on your current status preview, then delete it.
- Long press on the camera icon when creating a new status, and select ‘Delete’ to remove your current status.
Once deleted, your status will immediately disappear for your contacts. And you can then create and share a new status update.
Status limits
There are some limits to posting WhatsApp statuses:
- Text statuses limited to 139 characters
- Photos and videos 30 seconds max duration
- Voice messages 30 seconds max
- Image dimensions 4096×4096 pixels max
- Video dimensions 1280×720 pixels max
- File size 16 MB max for photos and videos
Trying to add media beyond these limits will result in compression or cropping when posting as status. For best results, use high-quality media within the size and duration limits.
Disappearing status history
Unlike permanent posts on social media, your WhatsApp statuses are meant to be temporary sharing. So once a status crosses 24 hours, it disappears from the app and server forever.
There is no public archive or history of old statuses. Neither you nor your contacts can retrieve or view expired statuses. So your privacy is maintained.
Status notifications
You can control whether you want to receive notifications when your contacts update their status. Go to WhatsApp Settings > Notifications > Status to enable or disable status notifications.
Disabling notifications will stop badging app icons and banner notifications of new statuses. However, statuses will still appear in the Status tab for viewing.
Using statuses effectively
Here are some tips to use WhatsApp statuses effectively and avoid common pitfalls:
- Keep it short, timely and relevant to your contacts.
- Don’t overshare personal details or sensitive content.
- Review before posting to check for typos, errors or unintended meanings.
- Use text formatting like bold and italics for impact.
- Express yourself with emojis, GIFs and reactions.
- Reply privately to statuses instead of public comments.
- Customize privacy settings according to your comfort.
- Delete embarrassing or mistaken statuses promptly.
Overall, exercise caution, use common sense and be selective about status sharing to get the most out of this fun WhatsApp feature.