Of all the platforms where stories were introduced, WhatsApp has to be the one that took it too brutally. We recall how WhatsApp users had started signing and circulating petitions for getting rid of the feature on its very first day. However, what seemed like an unnecessary feature on day one didn’t take much time to make space in the hearts of its users. Within months, people had forgotten all their grudges and accepted stories on the platform wholeheartedly.
Over the years, stories have undergone several changes and tweaks, some of which are lesser known than others. In today’s blog, we’re set to explore one such tweak, that shows you the time when someone viewed your story.
Excited to learn more about it? Stick with us till the end!
Can You See What Time Someone Viewed Your Story on Whatsapp?
We understand that you’re curious about the exact time when someone viewed your WhatsApp story. Now, whether it is out of general curiosity or you have an important use for it is beyond us; but we’d like to help you regardless of that.
Given below is a step-by-step guide directing you toward your desired destination. Check it out:
Step 1: Navigate WhatsApp’s green mobile app icon from the app grid menu of your smartphone. Once you find it, give it a tap.
Step 2: Doing so will launch the app on your device.
As soon as it opens, you’ll first land on the CHATS tab, where all your WhatsApp conversations – both individual and group – will be listed in reverse chronological order.
At the top of this tab, towards the right side of CHATS, you’ll find the STATUS tab’s link. Tap on it to go to the STATUS tab.
Step 3: As the STATUS tab opens, you’ll see how it’s divided into three sections:
The first section is reserved for any status you upload and is called My status.
If you’ve uploaded a story, it will reflect here. Towards its right, you’ll find an ellipsis icon (three dots arranged horizontally). Give it a tap next.
Step 4: Doing so will take you to a separate tab, where all the stories you’ve uploaded in the last 24 hours will be listed one by one – from the most recent to the oldest.
Here, next to the thumbnails of your stories, you’ll see X Views written (wherein X denotes a number; the number of views your story has received).
You need to tap the thumbnail of the story whose views you need to analyze next.
Step 5: As you do that, the story will open and play on your screen. Here, you’ll notice a white eye icon at the center bottom of the screen.
Tapping on this icon will open the viewers’ list of the story on your screen. This list is arranged in reverse chronological order, much like everything else on the platform.
If you look closely, you’ll find the time when a user viewed your story mentioned right below their names.
Now, for those views that came after 12 AM today, you’ll find a relative time stamp. This means it’ll look something like this:
X minutes ago
X hours ago
And for all the views from yesterday, you’ll be able to see the exact time in the HH:MM format. We hope you found exactly what you were looking for!
Can someone view your story on WhatsApp without your knowledge?
Above, we’ve told you all you wanted to know about checking the viewers list on the stories you upload on WhatsApp. However, there’s one aspect of this process that you still might be unfamiliar with; we aim to resolve that here.
Remember how we talked about the names of users being registered in your viewers list as soon as they open your story? Well, there is an exception to that rule as well.
In other words, if someone wants to see your story without being detected or showing up in the viewers list, there’s a setting on the platform to enable that. We’re talking about Read Receipts – a feature that was designed to get rid of blue tick marks on WhatsApp conversations.
The hidden story viewership feature of this setting is merely a by-product; but could come in handy to those who wish to see your stories secretly.
So, if someone has disabled their read receipt on WhatsApp, they’d be able to see your stories without letting you know. Now, you must be wondering how to figure out if someone’s read receipt is enabled.
That’s a fairly easy process as long as you converse with them on the platform. In chat, notice whether you can spot blue ticks below the messages you send them or not. If they’ve already replied to it, but the blue tick is still missing, that’s a good indicator of their read receipts being turned off.
If you find read receipts to be an interesting feature, we can totally understand that. However, beware that it has consequences of its own, too. What we mean is that turning it off can help a user watch stories secretly; on the downside, they won’t be able to see who viewed their stories either.
Does WhatsApp tell you how many times someone viewed your story?
Before we take your leave, we’d like to address one more FAQ that our readers often ask us: Is it possible to tell how many times someone viewed your WhatsApp story?
The short and brutal answer to this is that you can’t. Much like other social media platforms (that have the story feature), WhatsApp also registers only the first view of any user on your viewers list.
After viewing it once, they can view it as many times as they like, it wouldn’t change anything for you. While we do hope such a feature is launched in the future for users like you, there’s little we can do to help you in this regard right now.
The bottom line
With this, we’re ready to wrap things up. The subject of our focus today was WhatsApp stories.
We began by answering a commonly-asked question about checking the time when someone viewed your story. We’ve attached a step-by-step guide of the same above to help you navigate your way through it.
Moving forward, we also talked about watching other people’s stories secretly and checking if re-watches are registered on the platform. We hope to have resolved all your queries, but in case you have more, share them with us in the comments section below!
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