Why Can’t I See Contact Info on WhatsApp

WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging application in the world. With such popularity also comes great responsibility. Fortunately, the company owned by FaceBook offers a long list of security features to overcome potential problems. WhatsApp offers end-to-end chat / voice / video call encryption. Over the years, WhatsApp has added various options to secure your account. Some of them include the possibility to deactivate the read confirmation, biometric authentication, the possibility of controlling who can see your profile picture, your contact details, your status, etc.

Some privacy-oriented users may limit their WhatsApp range by activating certain security features. Practice may lead you not to see their profile picture, contact details, status, acknowledgment of receipt, etc.

This is standard behavior among experienced users. But this could confuse some users who do not know the privacy and security settings of WhatsApp.

In this article, we will explain to you how some WhatsApp users use privacy settings and why can’t you see the contact information or view the picture of some of the WhatsApp contacts in the app. Let’s start.

We will mention three scenarios where we cannot see the contact details of a WhatsApp user.

1. When someone has not added you as a contact

As you may already know, WhatsApp uses a contact number to add users to the messenger. You may have saved someone’s contact number with the name, but if the other person didn’t add you as a contact on their device, you may not see some of their contact details on WhatsApp .

WhatsApp privacy settings play a huge role. They are available under WhatsApp> Settings> Account> Privacy. If you select the “Everyone” option, anyone with your mobile phone number can see your profile picture, contact information on WhatsApp, which can infringe on your privacy.

Most users only allow their contacts to see their last view, profile picture, about (contact information) and their status. So in such cases, if the other person has not saved your contact number on the device, you cannot see their profile picture, contact details and status on WhatsApp.

2. When someone has added you as a contact but changed the privacy settings

Over the years, WhatsApp has added various privacy-focused options to prevent others from contacting you or browsing your profile in the app. The privacy settings are accessible from WhatsApp> Settings> Account> Privacy.

Some users can allow only a limited number of contacts to access their contact details, profile picture, status and last visit. If they have excluded you from the access list, you may not see the contact information of such user on WhatsApp.

How do they do this? Do you also want to apply the same security measures in your WhatsApp account? Follow the steps below.

Step 1: Open the WhatsApp app on your device.

2nd step: Tap the Settings icon in the lower right corner.

Step 3: Go to Account> Privacy and you’ll see the default settings for your WhatsApp account.

By default, your account information such as profile photo, last viewed, status and related information is visible to your contacts on WhatsApp. You can go to a relevant menu and select Person so that no one can see your profile picture, about, etc.

3. When someone blocked you

It is one of the oldest and easiest ways to prevent someone from contacting you on WhatsApp. If someone has blocked you on WhatsApp, you cannot see their contact details, their profile picture, they cannot send WhatsApp messages and their status cannot be displayed.

If you want to block someone, open that person’s WhatsApp chat and tap the profile icon. Scroll down and select block.

To unblock users, you can open WhatsApp and go to Settings> Account> Privacy> Blocked contacts and unblock them.

Let’s discuss another glaring pain point for WhatsApp users and learn how to fix it.

Restrict others to add you as a group member

You may have encountered a situation where a family member or friend adds you as a member of a group in an irrelevant WhatsApp group. I hate this practice. Also, there are cases where random numbers will add you to an abandoned group and you will spend several minutes wondering why this happened. To avoid such scenarios, you can prevent unknown people from adding you directly to a group.

Fortunately, WhatsApp has added a security option to limit others from adding you as a group member.

Open WhatsApp on your device and go to the app settings. Go to Account> Privacy> Groups. Here you will see the option “Who can add me to groups”. By default, it is set to My Contacts. This means that anyone on your contact list can create a group on WhatsApp and add you as a member.

You can select “My contacts except” and exclude these annoying contacts to add you to WhatsApp groups. Unfortunately, there is no direct “Person” option that limits everyone to add you in groups.

Enable WhatsApp privacy settings

I recommend that you consult the privacy and security settings of WhatsApp and make changes depending on your use. If you’re concerned that others are watching your WhatsApp chats, go for biometric authentication on iPhone and Android.