How To See Who Viewed your WhatsApp Status

Want to know more about WhatsApp Status? Want to see who viewed your WhatsApp Status? This tutorial is going to cover the feature and how to use the feature that many don’t even know exists.

WhatsApp Status has been around for a few years now but lots of people don’t even know about it. Introduced to take on Snapchat Stories, it rolled out fairly quietly, with none of the fanfare and marketing social networks usually employ to publicize feature updates. It offers the same image, text, and video sharing features of Stories with the same 24-hour lifespan. It’s a neat idea that nobody seems to use.

WhatsApp has never been about images or videos. It has always been about text messages, group chats, and the convenience of encrypted messaging between friends or colleagues. Perhaps that’s why WhatsApp Status hasn’t taken off as Snapchat Stories has. Because it doesn’t quite fit with the purpose of the network. Regardless of why, today we’re going to walk through what WhatsApp Status is and how to use it.

What is WhatsApp Status?

WhatsApp Status was introduced to keep WhatsApp competitive against Snapchat and Instagram. Both networks have similar features that offer time-limited updates that disappear after 24 hours and WhatsApp wanted in on the action. The feature was introduced back at the beginning of 2017 and has been present ever since.

You can find WhatsApp Status in its own tab above your conversation list. As long as you are using a recent version of the app it should be there. Tap the tab or swipe left from the home screen to access it. It has been there for the longest time yet it is so easy to overlook and many people I asked didn’t even realize it was there.

How to add a WhatsApp Status

Given how simple WhatsApp is to use, updating your Status is just as straightforward as doing anything else on the app. Select the Status tab and select ‘My Status’. You can then add a message, video, file, image, or GIF to add to your Status. You can also add text or emoji to the file to customize it further.

You can edit, resize, flip and rotate with pinch gestures, change the color and font of any text, and other minor editing tasks from within the Status window. Once done, hit Send and you publish it immediately.

WhatsApp Status will stay alive for 24 hours before disappearing forever.

See who viewed your WhatsApp Status

If you want to see who viewed your WhatsApp Status, you can. You can see exactly who viewed it from within the Status tab.

Tap on the Status tab in WhatsApp and tap on your status. Then, swipe up from the bottom.

Select the eye icon to see who viewed your WhatsApp Status.

When you open My Status, you should see a list of your updates and a small eye and a number to the right. That number is the total number of views your Status has received.

Views Aren’t Showing

It is worth noting that you can’t see who is viewing your status updates with read receipts on. For whatever reason, the WhatsApp developers decided that if you want to see what others are doing with your content, you have to give them something back. So, if you can’t see who viewed your status, do this:

Open WhatsApp and tap on the three vertical lines in the upper right-hand corner. Tap on Settings.

Tap on Account.

Tap on Privacy.

Finally, toggle the Read Receipts on. Even if you didn’t have them turned on when you first posted your status, they will appear.

Forward a status update

If you find you’re not getting enough views, you can manually forward WhatsApp Status to a chat. I wouldn’t do this too often as you may annoy your contacts but if it is something particularly relevant or important, it is possible to do.

1. Open My Status and select the update you want to forward.
2. Select the green forward icon and select where you want to forward it to.

You can choose a recent chat, frequent contact, another contact, group, or use search to locate a particular person. Once you hit Forward, your update will be added to the corresponding chat or create a new chat.

WhatsApp Status privacy

Only people you have saved as contacts can view your WhatsApp Status. Nobody else will be able to see them so privacy is taken care of there. You can refine this further if you want to from within the settings menu.

1. Select the Status tab in WhatsApp.
2. Select the three-dot menu icon and select Status Privacy.
3. Set your option.

You have three options here, you can select My contacts so every contact can see it, My contacts except… to restrict particular contacts from seeing it, or Only share with… to specify exactly who can see what.

Delete a WhatsApp Status

Even though every WhatsApp Status deletes itself every 24 hours, there may be times when you need to accelerate that a bit. You can manually delete your update whenever you want, like this:

1. Open the Status tab and select the three-dot menu icon.
2. Select the status update you want to delete.
3. Select the eye icon at the bottom of the screen.
4. Select the trash icon and then Delete to confirm.

Your update will be deleted immediately and will no longer be viewable by anyone unless they already have it open on their screen.