Have you sent a message via WhatsApp and have you not received a response? You may then use the 'last seen' option to see when someone was last online. Conversely, you may not want anyone to see when you were last online. Fortunately, you can turn off last seen in WhatsApp so that no one can see when you last opened the app. Here you can read how to do that.
If you have WhatsApp open, everyone can see it because you are indicated as 'online'. You can't - unfortunately, maybe - change that. What you can do is indicate that you do not want others to know when you were last online.
Turn off Last Seen on iPhone
To turn off the last seen feature on your iPhone, open the app and go to Institutions. Go through the heading Account nasty Privacy. At the top of your screen you will see the option Last seen. If you click on that, you will be given the choice of who can see your last seen status: everyone, only your contacts or nobody.
In the Privacy menu you can also adjust who can see your profile picture, info and status and you will find an overview of your blocked contacts. You can also turn off read receipts: someone else cannot see whether you have read his or her message and vice versa. Read receipts are always enabled for group chats.
Turn off last seen on Android
It works almost the same on Android smartphones. From the WhatsApp main menu, tap the dots in the top right corner and go to Institutions. Again, go to Account > Privacy. The Last Seen options are also the same as on iOS: Everybody, My contacts and No one
A step further than 'Last online' are the blue check marks, also known as read receipts. This allows others to see whether you have read a message. you can also turn that off. Go back to on both iOS and Android Settings > Account > Privacy and scroll down. Tick the checkbox or switch Read receipts from. Note: Disabling the blue checks also means that you can no longer see whether others have seen your message. For group messages, the read receipts will still be visible. Unfortunately this cannot be turned off.
