Hide WhatsApp ‘Online’ Status? Feature Looks to Be Coming Soon

After giving users the ability to disable Read Receipts and hide their Last Seen, WhatsApp will soon let them go completely incognito by also concealing their ‘Online’ status.

According to WABetaInfo, the Facebook-owned messaging platform is working on a new feature that gives users control over whether others can see when they are ‘Online.’ The functionality will land in an upcoming update for WhatsApp beta on Android, iOS, and Desktop, the publication said.

A preview image of the in-development feature shared by WABetaInfo shows that it will be available in the same Settings section where you can currently find preferences for your Last Seen.

Image: WABetaInfo

Users will get two options for their ‘Online’ status: letting everyone see it, or tying it to their Last Seen. When choosing the latter, your ‘Online’ status will have the same visibility as your Last Seen, i.e. everyone, your contacts, your contacts with specific exceptions, or nobody.

The new feature is still in the works and hasn’t even made its way into the beta build of WhatsApp as of yet. When regular WhatsApp users will get the ability to hide their ‘Online’ status currently remains unknown.

WhatsApp last month shipped several new features for the platform, including new privacy control settings and the ability to import chats from Android to iOS. The messaging app also added emoji reactions back in May.