If you're tired of seeing the same statuses over and over again, or you simply want to have a cleaner WhatsApp, you'll be interested to know that you can mute the WhatsApp statuses of specific people without them knowingIn addition, you can also choose who sees your own statuses, view them privately, and even hide them completely if you're overwhelmed by them.
What does muting WhatsApp statuses mean, and what doesn't it?
Before touching anything, it's important to be clear about exactly what happens when you decide mute a contact's status updatesMuting only affects how their statuses are displayed in your app: they stop appearing at the top as recent updates and move to a separate section called "Muted" or "Muted Updates".
It is important to understand that Muting statuses is not the same as blocking or muting a chatThe person you mute will still be able to message you, call you, and see your status updates if you include them in your privacy settings. You'll also be able to see their status updates whenever you want; just expand the muted list.
Furthermore, this action is completely discreet: WhatsApp is not sending any notifications There's no notification to the contact, and no hidden indicator to tell them you've stopped seeing their status updates as usual. It's a change visible only to you.
How to mute a contact's WhatsApp statuses step by step?
The process for silencing someone is virtually identical in Android and iPhoneAlthough the tab name may vary slightly (News, Status, Updates, etc.), the logic is always the same: locate the status, press and hold, and confirm.
To mute a specific person's status updates, follow this basic sequence from the mobile app:
- Open WhatsApp and go to the tab "News" or "Status", where the list of recent statuses from your contacts appears.
- Scroll through the list until you find the status of the contact you want to muteThat person needs to have an active status in order for you to do it.
- Keep your finger pressed for a prolonged period on their profile picture or on their status line.
- You will see a pop-up window appear asking if you want to mute the statuses of that contact.
- Touch on the option Silence to confirm the action.
As soon as you accept, That contact's statuses stop appearing at the top from the list of recent updates. They don't disappear, they simply move to a separate section at the bottom, under the "Muted" or "Muted Updates" block.
Even though you have silenced them, You can continue viewing their statuses as normal.Simply expand the bottom section, tap on their name, and play their post. The difference is that you'll no longer see the typical dot or notification that tells you they have a new status.
Where do the silenced states go and how can we see them?
Once you start muting contacts, you'll see a specific block appear at the bottom of the status tab called "Muted" or "Muted Updates"All contacts whose statuses you have chosen to hide will be stored there.
To see what they've uploaded, you just have to tap the arrow or drop-down menu From that section, the statuses will be displayed in a similar order to the rest. If you go in to view them, they will play normally, with their photos, videos, and text, but the contact will remain muted; that is, It will not be uploaded to the main part of the updates again..
This organization is very useful when you have people who post compulsively But those you need to maintain contact with—family, colleagues, bosses, clients, etc.—are still there for you to check, but they no longer monopolize your News Feed.
How do I unmute my status and make it show my status again?
If at any point you change your mind and want someone's status to be changed reappear as alwaysThe process to reverse the silence is just as simple as activating it.
To show the status of a muted contact again, do the following:
- Go to the tab News or Status of WhatsApp.
- Scroll down until you see the section silenced states and tap it to unfold it.
- Locate the status or name of the contact you want to unmute.
- makes a long press about his status, just like you did to silence him.
- A confirmation window will appear asking if you want to unmute that contact.
- Tap on mute off to confirm.
From that moment on, that person's new status updates They will reappear in the main block Recent updates, mixed with those of the rest of your contacts, and if you have status notifications enabled, they will also count towards those alerts.
Keep in mind that if the contact has no active status at that moment, You won't be able to make the change until I publish a new one.Silence is always managed from an existing status update.
How to choose who can see your WhatsApp statuses?
Silencing others is fine, but equally important is control who sees what you postOn WhatsApp, simply having a private account like on other networks isn't enough: anyone who has your number saved in their contacts and you have it in yours can see your statuses by default, unless you adjust your privacy settings.
Think about all the contacts you accumulate over the years: high school classmates, college classmates, ex-partners, distant relativesPeople you made a one-off deal with, someone you sold something to on Wallapop… All those people could be seeing your statuses if you don't limit who has access.
To configure the privacy settings for your status updates and decide who can see them, you must do the following:
- Open WhatsApp and go to the tab «News».
- On iPhone, tap the icon of the three blue dots next to your state and choose Status privacy. On Android, go to StatesTap on the three vertical dots and also select Status privacy.
- You'll see three privacy options to choose from for how to share your statuses.
The alternatives offered by WhatsApp are:
- Contacts: all contacts saved in your address book who also have you saved can see your statuses.
- My contacts, except ...: all your contacts will be able to see them, except those you manually exclude from the list.
- Just share with…You choose one by one the contacts who will be able to see your statuses, leaving the rest out.
These adjustments only affect the statuses you post from that moment onPrevious updates do not change retroactively; if you already uploaded something with a more open setting, you will have to delete those statuses if you do not want them to remain visible to those who already had access to them.
How to make it so nobody can see your statuses?
It seems a bit absurd to upload statuses only for no one to see them, but some people use this feature occasionally or out of habit and prefer to have a absolute control over who accesses your publicationsIf your goal is to prevent any contacts from seeing what you upload, you can achieve this by adjusting the privacy settings.
You have two ways to achieve this, starting from "State privacy":
- If you choose My contacts, except ...You can use the "mark all contacts" icon and so on exclude your entire scheduleThis way, no one will have access to your status updates. However, every time you add a new contact to your address book, you'll have to return to this screen to exclude them as well.
- If you select Just share with… And if you don't tag anyone at all, you'll be indicating that There is no authorized contact. to see your statuses. The practical result is the same: your statuses will become invisible to everyone.
You can change these settings as often as you like, adapting them to each situation. For example, you might be interested in Open your status updates only to a small group for a specific event and then return to a more general mode for your day-to-day life.
Mute other people's statuses to stop seeing their posts
Sometimes the problem isn't so much what you post as what others post. In every group of contacts, there are usually... some really annoying person who uploads ten, twenty or more stories a dayEven if you ignore them, the notification and the dot that alerts you to new statuses can end up being a nuisance.
As we have already seen, the way to get rid of these states without breaking the relationship with that person is mute their updatesTo do this on any compatible mobile phone:
- Go to the tab "News" or "Status" of WhatsApp.
- Look for the status of the person you no longer want to see in the main section.
- Press and hold its status until the option appears "Silence" in a pop-up window.
- Confirm the action to move your updates to the muted section at the bottom.
Once silenced, the contact It won't disappear from your WhatsApp or your chats.Their status updates will simply accumulate discreetly in that muted area, and you'll only see them if you intentionally expand that section. You can mute as many contacts as you like, and they'll all be saved in that block, without notifications and without cluttering your screen.
If you ever want to go back to seeing what he posts normally, you'll just have to remove the silence from one of its statesAs I explained before, if there are no active statuses, that's fine: you'll still not receive notifications of their posts until you decide to change it later when they upload something new.
How do I stop seeing all the statuses at once?
WhatsApp does not currently offer a button for completely disable the States section from within the app itself. However, there's a slightly more radical trick to stop seeing absolutely all updates without having to mute each contact individually.
The idea consists of revoke access permission to contacts that WhatsApp has on your phone. If the app can't access your address book, it can't link numbers to profiles, and consequently, it stops showing you your contacts' statuses.
On Android, the procedure is:
- Press and hold the icon WhatsApp on the home screen or in the app drawer.
- Tap on App information or on the "i" icon.
- Enter the section Permissions.
- Locate the permit Contacts and change the option to Do not allow.
On iOS the process is slightly different, but the idea is the same:
- Open the app Configuration of the iPhone.
- Go to the block of Privacy & Security.
- Sign in Contacts to see which apps have access.
- Find WhatsApp in the list and turn off the switch to withdraw his permit.
After taking these steps, you may need to Close and reopen WhatsApp For the change to take full effect, you will no longer see statuses because the app will no longer link your contacts to updates. You can restore contact permission at any time if you want to get the feature back.
View WhatsApp statuses discreetly
Another important point related to states is the issue of privacy of the viewsEvery time you view someone's status, that person can swipe up on their story and see a list of contacts who have viewed it. If you don't want to appear on that list, there are several methods you can use.
The simplest option is disable read receipts in the app settings. This affects not only chats (the blue double check) but also statuses. To do this on Android:
- Open WhatsApp and tap on the three dots from the upper right corner.
- Sign in Settings and then in Account.
- Access the section Privacy .
- Disable the option Reading confirmations.
On iPhone the path is similar, going to Settings within WhatsApp, then to Account, and finally to Privacy to uncheck read receiptsFrom that moment on, when you see other people's statuses, You will not appear on the viewers list.But there's a catch: you also won't be able to see who has viewed your own statuses, nor will you see the blue double check in chats.
This decision has a global and irreversible effect on messages already sent. Messages that were sent while confirmation was disabled They won't show the blue double check even if you turn it back on later. And, while the option is turned off, you'll also lose the view count for your statuses.
If you don't want to permanently disable this feature, there's a trick with WhatsApp Web in an incognito windowThe general steps would be:
- Open a private browsing window in your browser from your computer.
- Enter the page of Web WhatsApp and link it to your account by scanning the QR code.
- Go to the statuses tab, but don't open any yet.
- Disconnect your computer from the Internet (turn off Wi-Fi or network cable).
- Open the status you want to view, already in offline mode, and play it.
- Completely close the browser window when finished, before reconnecting to the Internet.
By performing this procedure, the information that you have seen that state It doesn't reach WhatsApp's serversBecause you cut the connection before it was sent. It's a more cumbersome method and not 100% foolproof, but it can work in specific cases if you want maximum discretion.
On Android there is also the option to pull a File Browser To view status content without going through the normal interface, WhatsApp temporarily saves the multimedia from your uploaded statuses to your internal memory in a hidden folder called .Status within the app's directory structure.
To use this trick you need a file manager that allows View hidden files and folders (Phones from brands like Samsung, Xiaomi, or Huawei usually come with one pre-installed, and there are many alternatives on Google Play). By enabling the option to show hidden items and navigating to the WhatsApp folder in internal storage, the .Statuses folder will appear with all photos and videos associated with uploaded statusesBy opening them from there, the owner won't see your name in the list of people who have viewed their status.
Another variant is that of View statuses with your phone in airplane modeYou let them charge while connected, activate airplane mode, check the status, and keep the phone offline until it expires. This method is much less precise because it's easy to accidentally reconnect prematurely or miscalculate the 24 hours, so it's not as reliable as managing read receipts.
WhatsApp Status and its relationship with other social networks
WhatsApp allows Share your status updates as stories on other platformsFor example, on Facebook Stories. This makes it easier to post the same content on multiple sites, but it has an important consequence: when leaving WhatsApp, The privacy rules of the other social network come into play..
If you post your status to Facebook, they'll be able to see it. all your Facebook friends or even anyone if your profile there is public. In other words, the reach of your content can be much greater than you initially thought when you uploaded it only to WhatsApp. Furthermore, any changes you make later to the privacy settings of your statuses within WhatsApp will also affect its reach. they do not have retroactive effect about what you have already shared on Facebook or other networks.
To share a status on another platform, the flow is usually:
- Post the status normally in WhatsApp.
- Go to the already published update and tap on the icon of share.
- Select the desired social network, such as Facebook Storiesand confirm the publication.
If you regret sharing something outside of WhatsApp, you will have to Go into that other social network and delete the content there. Manually. WhatsApp cannot delete posts for you that have already been duplicated on other services.
Common questions about privacy and WhatsApp statuses
Several questions always arise regarding states that should be clarified. One of the most common is whether The other person knows you've muted their status updatesThe answer is no: it is a completely private action that does not generate any notifications.
Another common confusion is the difference between mute a chat and mute statusesWhen you mute a chat or group, you stop receiving notifications for their messages, but you'll still see their status updates if they post them. Muting status updates hides their stories from your News Feed, but text messages and calls will still come through as usual.
Many people also wonder what happens if disable read receipts to view statuses privately. In that case, you will lose the blue double check in all your chats and You won't be able to see who has read your messages.Furthermore, you also won't have access to the list of contacts who have viewed your own statuses, because the feature operates globally across the entire app.
Finally, if you delete a WhatsApp status that you had also shared on another social network, It will not be automatically removed from that network.You'll need to log into your Facebook, Instagram, or other platform account and manually remove that story so it's no longer visible there.
With all these options at hand, it's quite easy to adapt WhatsApp to your way of using it: you can mute statuses of specific people who are bothering youControl down to the millimeter who sees what you post, hide your own views when you want to snoop without leaving a trace, and even completely disconnect the status function if you prefer to focus only on chats.
By properly adjusting privacy settings and using mute tricks, the News tab stops being a constant noise and becomes something you only see when you really want to. Share this information so more users know how to mute WhatsApp statuses.