WhatsApp may finally allow you to hide your online status soon

New features based on user requests and quality of life improvements are continuously added to WhatsApp. We recently saw the arrival of reactions in the social messaging app, which allows people to quickly engage with messages without having to type something out. Now, it seems that Meta is adding a very useful configuration to WhatsApp, enabling people to hide their online status.

Although WhatsApp allows you to hide your "Last seen" status already, this is not a perfect implementation as someone can still open a chat window with you and monitor when you come online. This is particularly problematic if someone is stalking you or even if you just want to avoid interactions with anyone while still being able to see your messages.

According to reliable outlet WABetaInfo, Meta is remedying this issue by introducing a configuration that will allow you to decide how visible you want your online status to be. Here's how the outlet describes the options it discovered, which can also be seen in the screenshot at the top of the article:

It will be possible to configure who can see when we are online right within our last seen settings thanks to two new options: "Everyone" and "Same as Last Seen". For example, if you choose "My contacts" for "Last Seen" and “Same as Last Seen" for "online", it means non-contacts won’t be able to see when you’re online.

While the options in the current implementation are quite limited, it's possible that Meta may expand them to cover more use-cases before, and if, the feature becomes generally available.

Although the screenshot procured by WABetaInfo is from the iOS app, it's natural to assume that the capability will also arrive on Android, web, and desktop at some point. That said, there is no word on availability yet as the feature has not even been seeded to the WhatsApp Beta app.

Source and original image: WABetaInfo