Is WhatsApp a curse or a blessing? Despite strong competition from Telegram and Threema, WhatsApp still has the upper hand on the messenger service market and is on most smartphones.
We explain how to completely master the service in our questions and answers about WhatsApp. These apply to Android and iOS.
1. A specific contact should not know that I am on WhatsApp. Is that possible?
No.
Even if you block a contact in WhatsApp, they will still see you in their WhatsApp contact list. WhatsApp accesses the contacts stored in the phone. If the other person has your phone number stored in their phone and you use WhatsApp, you will also appear in their contact lists.
Blocking a contact only means that this person can no longer see your status and profile updates.
2. Can I appear as offline (invisible)?
Yes.
You can make yourself invisible to your contacts with a little trick. You have two to three options: activate flight mode or disconnect WiFi and data connection. Then, open the message. However, this is only a contrived invisible mode since it is nothing more than simply interrupting the data connection.
As a third solution on the iPhone, you can also control who can see your Recent online and Status messages in the Privacy settings: Nobody, My contacts, or Everyone.
The Last online… message will not be updated, and the contact will not see that you are online.
3. If my old number is reassigned, can this person see my messages and contacts?
No.
The new owner of your old phone number can neither see your contacts nor access old conversations. Both information is stored in the phone, and WhatsApp gets the data from there. However, your new phone number owner may receive messages from your contacts who don’t know about your number swap.
To avoid these problems, WhatsApp recommends the following steps:
Put your new phone number in the status display.
Inform your contacts about your new number via a broadcast message.
4. Can I delete contacts forever?
Yes.
WhatsApp spring cleaning: to delete a contact completely, you must first delete them from your phonebook. After that, you need to block that person. In this way, you will prevent the deleted user from continuing to contact you.
But as already described above, The blocked person will still see you in their own contact list. However, the user will no longer receive status updates.
5. Can the new participant read the previous messages if I invite someone to a group?
No.
When a participant joins a group chat for the first time, they can only read the messages that are sent from that moment on. The new participant does not have access to previously sent messages.
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