How to know if a person is online on WhatsApp
You have contacted a friend of yours several times on WhatsApp but he does not answer you. Sure, he’ll be busy, but you need to get some information from him. Time goes by and you want to figure out if he’s ignoring you or just hasn’t seen your messages yet. Many of us are now addicted to applications and Web services that show the access status of a contact and you want to understand if WhatsApp also allows you to do so. This is exactly how things are, right? Then wait a few seconds, because you will soon find out how to reach your goal.
In fact, in this guide of mine, I will show you how to know if a person is online on WhatsApp through the features already available within the famous Meta group app. I will show you how to proceed both on smartphone and on PC through the desktop client and the Web version of WhatsApp. I will also recommend some alternative solutions to use for monitoring WhatsApp-related activities on smartphones.
How do you say? Can’t wait to read my tips? So let’s not waste any more time: sit comfortably and dedicate a few minutes of your time to discover the information I have prepared in this tutorial, useful for achieving your goal. Have a good reading!
Index
- How to see if a person is online on WhatsApp
- Activate the last login
- Activate read receipts
- See online status
- Enable notifications
- Other solutions to understand if a person is online on WhatsApp
- App to know if a person is online on WhatsApp
How to see if a person is online on WhatsApp
As mentioned above, in the next chapters of this tutorial I will show you the procedures needed to activate some WhatsApp features useful for knowing if a person is online or not on all devices.
Therefore, if your intent is to know when a person is online on WhatsApp from Android or how to know when a person is online on WhatsApp from iPhone or PC, all you have to do is follow the instructions related to the operating system of yours. smartphone that you will find indicated in the following paragraphs.
Activate the last login
Among the methods you can use to find out if a person is online on WhatsApp there is the activation of the native functionality of the messaging app that shows your last access and, consequently, for a reciprocity constraint, also the date and time. of the last access made by your contacts.
Therefore, check that this feature is active: on Android you can do it by tapping on the ⋮ icon at the top right and selecting the Settings item from the context menu. On iOS, however, you have to press the Settings icon (the symbol of a gear ) that you find in the lower right corner. Finally, in WhatsApp for PC you can access the settings via the top menu.
Then access the Account> Privacy sections , tap on the word Last accessed and, finally, choose the My contacts option.
Once this is done, knowing the last access of a person on WhatsApp is very easy, as this information appears within each conversation, under the name of the person with whom you are exchanging messages. WhatsApp, in fact, shows the last time the contact was online, indicating the day and time .
Therefore, if your contact has not deactivated the display of his last access , in the top bar of the chat you will be able to view – in addition to the profile picture and the name of the contact – the wording on the last access made, indicated in the Last format access [day] [time]. Easy, right?
Activate read receipts
Another way to know if a person is online (even if not completely trustworthy), is to check if a message you sent to a contact has been read. This method consists in checking if, next to the sent message, there are two blue check marks.
On WhatsApp messages, in fact, it is possible to check the sending and reading status of a message using the check icons that appear next to it: a single gray check mark means that the message has been sent; two gray check marks mean that the message has been sent to the contact’s device; finally, two blue check marks confirm that what has been sent has been read.
However, as with the Last Access feature , read receipts can also be disabled and have a reciprocity constraint, so they are visible to other users only if you enable this feature for your account.
To activate the read receipts on your Android device , tap the ⋮ icon located at the top right and select the Settings item from the context menu. If you have an iPhone , on the other hand, press the Settings icon (the symbol of a gear ) located at the bottom right. In WhatsApp for PC you can access the settings via the top menu. Then access the Account> Privacy sections and activate the Read receipts item.
Now, let’s see how to interpret what was said in the previous lines. Access the conversation with the contact you want to know when they were online and keep your finger pressed on the message you sent on which you see the two blue check marks .
Once this is done, on Android , tap on the⋮ icon, at the top right, and select the Info item from the context menu. On iOS, however, tap on the [▶] icon and press Info. In this way, you can see the precise date and time in which the message was delivered and the one in which it was read. This last piece of information lets you know when the contact was online, given that they read the message you sent.
Even via WhatsApp Web or the WhatsApp desktop client you can see when a message has been read. Access a contact’s conversation and move the pointer over the message you sent, which has the two blue check marks . Then click on the icon [˅] and, from the context menu, choose the Message Info item.
Clearly, the information will only be visible if your contact has not deactivated the blue ticks on WhatsApp.
See online status
In case you don’t know, if you open a WhatsApp chat with a contact and wait, when this opens the app, the wording above the chat will change to Online , indicating that it is online. This information will also be displayed in case of deactivation of last access and blue ticks.
This way, if you are texting someone, you can know if they are available to read them and converse with you.
Enable notifications
Always using WhatsApp, you can understand when a contact is online when, of course, he sends a message on your smartphone. However obvious this indication may be, it may happen that, using the app on a smartphone, the desktop client or the Web service, you will not receive any notification of the messages received.
Check, therefore, if in the settings of your device you have, by mistake, disabled the display of notifications in real time. In this case, I will show you the procedures to perform both on smartphones ( Android and iOS ), and from the web or desktop client.
On Android, start the WhatsApp app and tap the⋮ icon, present at the top right. In the context menu, tap on the Settings item and reach the Notifications section. Therefore, check if the sounds for receiving notifications have been enabled, making sure that there is a check mark under Conversation tones . Also, check all other information on the screen is active, such as configuring a sound to play when a notification is received or the ability to show a preview of it at the top of the screen.
Alternatively, join the panel of settings of Android, by tapping on the icon with the symbol gear you are on the home screen or in the apps menu and went in the section App & Notifications> Notification Manager ; then scroll through the list of apps, making sure that the word ON is indicated next to the WhatsApp entry.
Once this is done, press on it and view all the types of notifications you receive on your device. Find the one with the wording Message notifications and tap on it. In the new screen, move all the options you see on the screen from OFF to ON, in order to activate, for example, the notification pop-ups and the execution of sounds or vibrations when a message is received.
On iOS, on the other hand, open the WhatsApp Settings, using the icon with the gear symbol in the lower right corner. Then go to the Notifications section and make sure that all the options are set to ON.
You can also access the Settings of your iPhone, by tapping on the icon with the symbol of a gear on the home screen, and reach the menu item Notifications . Scroll, therefore, the list of apps until you find the one related to WhatsApp and tap on it. Again, all options must be set to ON, to make sure you are receiving notifications.
On WhatsApp for PC, click on the icon (…) [v] instead and select the Settings item from the context menu. Then access the Notifications section and check that there are check marks on all the options you see on the screen.
The above procedure is also valid for the web version of WhatsApp , but some notifications may be blocked by your browser. In fact, if above the list of contacts on the left you should read a message with the words Activate desktop notifications, click on it and then press the Allow button for this site, in the window that is shown to you in the browser. This procedure is valid for most browsers in circulation.
If you do not see such a message, using for example Google Chrome , click on the word Safe , which you see next to the address https://web.whatsapp.com
. In the screen that is shown to you, identify the Notifications item and select Allow from the drop-down menu.
Once this is done, then reload the page via the Reload button which is shown immediately below the address bar, so as to be sure to view desktop notifications whenever you receive a message from a contact. More info here.
Other solutions to understand if a person is online on WhatsApp
A final method that I can recommend to you to know if a person is online on WhatsApp is to use Parent Control apps , useful for monitoring the use of installed applications. Among the many present on the virtual stores of Android and iOS, I recommend that you download Qustodio.
This free application is available both on the Android Play Store and on the iOS / iPadOS App Store and allows you to monitor the activities of the device on which it is installed. To take advantage of it, you can also decide to subscribe to an annual subscription starting from € 42.95 per year, which removes the limitations of the free version (allows you to manage only one device) and adds various features, such as location detection or blocking. of applications.
Therefore, if you want to view all the times that a contact is online, through this solution you can, in fact, access the web panel to read the real-time activity of the smartphone on which you have installed Qustodio, after installing and configuring the smartphone app. or tablet on the device you want to control.
In case you are interested in learning more about the topic, you must also know that there are several other apps that allow you to monitor the use of WhatsApp remotely, similar to the one I indicated in the previous lines.
Another alternative is, in fact, the Screen Time app, available on Android and iOS / iPadOS, but there are many others that can help you achieve your goal; therefore, if you want more information on the possibility of using this type of solutions, I suggest you read this guide.
App to know if a person is online on WhatsApp
Despite the different solutions proposed in this tutorial, are you wondering if there are apps to know if a person is online on WhatsApp, as you would like to use a tool that notifies you when a person connects to the messaging service?
I absolutely advise you to desist from your intent: do not use third-party applications or services that promise to notify the online status of a person on WhatsApp, as the insertion of your phone number or that of the user who you want to monitor could seriously compromise their privacy, perhaps being added to aggressive telemarketing lists.
Many of these services that have been created were then deactivated after a short time (so it would really be a “gift” given to “meddlers” and telemarketers); then don’t tell me that I didn’t warn you!