The short version: WhatsApp does not let you hide your online status from one named person while showing it to everyone else, that selective control simply does not exist in the app's settings. What you can do is turn your last seen and online status off for everyone, archive or mute the person, or in some cases move the conversation to a different channel entirely. I will walk through exactly what WhatsApp allows, what it does not, and the workaround that gets you closest to what you want.
Why this question keeps coming up
I get why people ask this. You want to message your sister without your ex seeing you are online. You want to be reachable for work clients but invisible to the person who messages you the second that green dot appears. It feels like a small, reasonable ask. WhatsApp just was not built for it.
WhatsApp's privacy settings work in broad categories, not individual exceptions. You can hide your last seen and online status from "everyone" or "my contacts", but there is no "everyone except this one person" toggle for online status. That is different from profile photo and last seen, where WhatsApp does let you exclude specific contacts. Online status is the odd one out.
What WhatsApp lets you control
Go to Settings, then Privacy, then Last Seen and Online. On most Android and iPhone versions you will see three options: Everyone, My Contacts, and Nobody. Choose Nobody and your last seen disappears for everyone, and your online status stops showing in individual chats. The catch, and this is the bit people skip past, is that this is all or nothing. Turn it off for the annoying ex and you also turn it off for your mum, your business partner, and the client waiting on a reply.
There is also a reciprocity rule worth knowing. If you hide your last seen from everyone, you also lose the ability to see anyone else's last seen, even people you are not trying to hide from. WhatsApp enforces this both ways. So if you rely on checking when a colleague was last active to judge whether they have seen your message, switching to Nobody costs you that too.
A worked example
Say you run a small events planning business from your phone, juggling three WhatsApp conversations at once: a supplier in Manchester, a client in Sydney, and a former business partner you fell out with who still messages at odd hours wanting to "catch up." You want the supplier and client to see you are online so they trust you are responsive, but you do not want the ex-partner tracking when you are awake and available.
Here is the honest outcome: WhatsApp will not do that split for you. Your real options are to set Last Seen and Online to Nobody (and lose visibility for the supplier and client too), block the ex-partner outright, mute their chat so it stops nagging you without changing what they see, or move that one relationship to a different channel like email or a separate business number through WhatsApp Business, which runs as its own app with its own number and privacy settings, as explained in this guide on whether WhatsApp Business is a separate app. For a business owner specifically, having a second number for work contacts and keeping your personal number for everyone else, including the person you are avoiding, is often the cleanest fix.
The workaround that gets closest
If you want something nearer to a per-person setting, blocking is the only true one-to-one control WhatsApp offers. Block the contact and they cannot see your online status, last seen, profile photo, or whether you have read their messages, full stop. The downside is obvious: blocking is loud. They will likely notice, their messages will sit undelivered, and if you later unblock them there is no quiet undo.
A quieter middle ground is archiving the chat combined with notification muting. This does not hide your online status from that person, they can still open WhatsApp and see it if they check, but it removes the visual nagging on your end and reduces how often you are tempted to reply the moment you see their message. It is a behavioural fix more than a technical one, and worth saying plainly: most people asking this question are not trying to solve a privacy problem, they are trying to avoid an awkward conversation. Turning off a setting does not do that for you.
Step by step for the Nobody option
- Open WhatsApp and tap Settings (or the three dots menu on Android)
- Tap Privacy
- Tap Last Seen and Online
- Select Nobody for Last Seen
- Check the Online status beneath it, on current versions it often auto-adjusts to "Same as Last Seen" or gives you a separate toggle, set it to match
- Confirm, then test by asking a trusted contact whether they can still see when you were last online
That last step matters because WhatsApp has changed this flow across updates, and what shows on an iPhone running the latest version can look slightly different from an older Android build. If you have not updated recently, check this walkthrough on how to download the latest WhatsApp update before assuming a setting is broken when it is just outdated.
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What about third-party apps and mods?
A search for this topic will turn up modified WhatsApp versions like GB WhatsApp or WhatsApp Plus that claim to offer granular, per-contact online status hiding. I would steer well clear. These are not official builds, they are not vetted by Meta, and using them has got accounts banned outright, with no appeal process because you have breached the terms of service simply by installing an unauthorised app. If you want the fuller picture on the risks, I have covered it in detail in this piece on whether WhatsApp Plus is safe. For one awkward contact, it is not worth risking the account you use for everyone else, including paying clients.
Reading the signals instead of hiding them
There is a wider point here that most guides on this topic avoid saying out loud: if you are regularly trying to hide activity from one specific person, that usually says more about the relationship than the app. WhatsApp's read receipts and online status were built to signal availability, and when you start engineering ways around that for one person, you are often solving a people problem with a settings menu. That is fine as a short-term fix, but it rarely fixes the underlying reason you are avoiding them in the first place.
If the issue is more about general message visibility than online status, it is worth understanding how WhatsApp's tick system behaves, because people often confuse "online" with "read". If a message to someone shows only one tick, it has not been delivered yet, not that they are ignoring you, and I break that down in this explainer on why WhatsApp shows one tick only.
A business angle worth noting
If this question has come up because you run a business account and want professional contacts to see activity while personal contacts do not, the real fix is separation rather than a hidden setting. WhatsApp Business lets you set up a distinct profile with its own category and visibility rules, and choosing the right setup matters more than people think, covered in this guide to choosing a WhatsApp Business category. Running personal and business numbers separately solves the "hide from one person" problem for good in a work context, because that one person simply never gets your business number.
Frequently asked questions
Can I hide my WhatsApp online status from just one contact?
No, WhatsApp does not offer a per-contact online status setting, you can only set last seen and online status to Everyone, My Contacts, or Nobody for all contacts at once.
Does blocking someone hide my online status from them?
Yes, blocking a contact hides your online status, last seen, profile photo, and read receipts from them completely, but it also stops them from messaging you at all and is usually noticeable.
If I set last seen to Nobody, can I still see other people's last seen?
No, WhatsApp applies this reciprocally, if you hide your last seen from everyone you also lose the ability to see anyone else's last seen status.
Are apps like GB WhatsApp a safe way to hide status from one person?
No, modified WhatsApp versions are not authorised by Meta and using them has led to accounts being permanently banned, it is not worth the risk for a single contact.
