How to block someone on WhatsApp (step-by-step guide for all devices)

Blocking a person or business on WhatsApp stops their messages, calls, and status updates from reaching you. It also hides whether you’re online, when you were last active, and any profile photo changes from that contact.

In this guide, we explain how to block a person or business on WhatsApp on Android, iPhone, WhatsApp Web, and the desktop app. We also outline how to unblock contacts and cover when alternatives like muting or archiving might be enough.

What happens when you block a person or business on WhatsApp?

Once blocked, a contact’s attempts to directly reach you no longer appear on your device. Here’s a quick overview of what happens:

• Direct chat messages: Messages are no longer delivered to you. From their side, the message shows as sent (a single gray checkmark) but not delivered. Note that if you later unblock the contact/business, you still won’t receive or have access to any messages sent during the block.
• Calls: While blocked contacts and businesses can attempt to call, it will not connect. You will not be notified of these call attempts, nor will they appear as missed calls.
• Group chats: If you share a group with someone you’ve blocked, you’ll still be able to see each other’s messages. To avoid interacting with them entirely, you’ll need to leave the shared group.

Profile visibility and status updates

The following activity information is hidden from blocked businesses and contacts:

• Profile photo updates: Blocked contacts will only be able to see the profile picture you had at the time they were blocked.
• Last seen and online status indicators: These are hidden even if your usual privacy settings would allow it. They also lose access to your “About” information if they were previously able to see it.
• Future status updates: Any status updates you share after the block won’t be visible. The blocked contact or business can still see a status update that’s active and public at the time of blocking, but like any status, it will disappear automatically within 24 hours.

Is blocking the right solution?

Blocking is the right solution when you want to quickly and fully stop communication with a specific contact or business. But if your goal is simply to reduce notifications, keep certain chats out of sight, or limit what others can see on your profile, WhatsApp offers alternative options that may fit better.

Note: Blocked contacts and businesses don’t receive a notification they've been blocked. However, they may still determine they’ve been blocked after not receiving a response over several contact attempts, as well as through other indicators, such as seeing their messages marked as undelivered or a sudden stop in status updates.

How to block a person or business on WhatsApp

WhatsApp allows you to block contacts from individual chats and, if you’re on mobile, through your contact list. Here’s how to do it.

How to block a contact or business on Android

1. Open the chat with the contact or business you want to block.
2. Tap the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the chat, and tap Block (if you don’t see an option to block, look for it under More in the same menu).
3. You can choose to report the contact or business by checking the “Report to WhatsApp” box. Keep in mind that if you’re blocking a business, you need to choose a reason why. This is only for WhatsApp’s internal review and isn’t needed when blocking an individual contact. When you’re ready, tap Block again.

Note: If you decide to file a report, WhatsApp receives the last five messages the contact or business sent to review for abuse or spam, along with basic information about the last five calls (such as who initiated each call and their duration), if any took place.

How to block a contact or business on iPhone (iOS)

1. Open the chat with the contact or business you wish to block, and tap their name at the top of the chat to open their contact info.
2. Scroll down and tap Block [name or number].
3. A confirmation menu will appear. Choose Block to block the contact, or Block and Report if you also want to report the recent messages and calls to WhatsApp.

How to block a person or business using WhatsApp Web or the desktop app (Windows and Mac)

The following guide covers the blocking process on the Windows app, but note that you can follow the same steps on WhatsApp Web and the Mac app, as it’s largely the same on those platforms.

1. Open the chat with the person or business you want to block and click the contact’s name or phone number at the top of the window.
2. In the panel that opens, scroll to the bottom and select Block.
3. In the confirmation window, click Block to confirm. You can also choose to report the person or business to WhatsApp, and you may be asked to specify your reason for blocking a business.

Note: If you’re using the web app and don’t want to open the chat, you can also right-click on the contact in your conversation list and click Block.

How to block a contact from the WhatsApp contact list (Android and iPhone)

1. Open your WhatsApp Settings menu (on Android, find this in the three vertical dots; on iPhone, tap the gear icon).
2. Tap Privacy.
3. Tap Contacts.
4. Tap Blocked Contacts (Android) or Blocked (iPhone).
5. Here, you’ll see any numbers you’ve already blocked. On Android, tap the contact icon in the top right corner. On iPhone, tap Add new.
6. Tap the contact you want to block (you may need to confirm in a popup window).

How to unblock a person or business on WhatsApp

Unblocking a person or business restores the ability to exchange messages, calls, or status updates. Here’s how to do it:

How to unblock a contact on Android and iPhone

1. Open the chat with the contact or business you’ve blocked (you’ll have to search for them in your contact list if you’ve deleted the chat). A banner will appear at the bottom of the chat stating “You blocked this contact” or “You blocked this business.” Tap Unblock.
2. The contact or business is now unblocked.

How to unblock a contact using WhatsApp Web or the desktop app (Windows and Mac)

WhatsApp Web and the desktop apps allow you to unblock a contact in a similar fashion to how you would block them. Simply click Unblock at the bottom of your chat with the contact, or if you’re on Mac, you can also select the three-dots icon in the top-right of the chat and click Unblock.

What happens after you unblock someone or a business?

Once you remove a block, new messages, calls, and status updates from that contact or business can reach you again, and your profile details become visible according to the privacy settings you have in place.

Muting chats

If you don’t wish to cut off communication with a contact entirely, WhatsApp allows you to mute the chat with them instead.

Muting a chat prevents you from receiving notifications while allowing messages to continue arriving. Sounds, vibration alerts, and banners are silenced for the duration you choose, but the chat remains accessible, and you can continue to send messages within it. The other person or business is not informed that the chat has been muted.

To mute a chat on Android and iOS, open the conversation and tap the contact or group name at the top of the screen. Select Notifications, then toggle Mute or Mute notifications (differs upon platform) and choose how long you want to mute the chat for: 8 hours, 1 week, or Always.

On WhatsApp Web or the desktop app, open the conversation, click the three horizontal dots in the top right corner, and select Mute notifications. Choose the duration and confirm.

Best privacy practices for WhatsApp users

If you’d like to limit who can generally contact you and what information is public, you can make use of WhatsApp’s privacy settings and tools.

Reviewing your privacy settings

WhatsApp groups your main privacy controls in one place, which you can access by going into your Settings menu and choosing the Privacy option.

In terms of visibility, you can individually limit who sees your last seen and online status, your profile photo, About information, status updates, and more. Choosing “My Contacts” or “My Contacts Except” means only people you’ve saved in your address book can see this information, with the option to exclude specific contacts you don’t want to share it with. You can also choose to share these categories of information with everyone or nobody.

In addition, you can turn off read receipts if you prefer not to share when you’ve viewed a message (though keep in mind that you won’t see others’ read receipts, either, and that read receipts are always sent in group chats).

Other privacy features include disappearing messages, which, when enabled, ensures any new messages you send will automatically delete themselves after 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days, depending on the duration you choose.

In the Advanced menu, there are toggles for blocking unknown account messages, protecting your IP address in calls, and disabling link previews.

Finally, it’s possible to manage who can add you to groups and restrict group invitations to your saved contacts. You can silence calls from unknown numbers, too, so they don’t appear as notifications. They’ll still appear in your call history so you can review them later.

These options can be reviewed through the guided Privacy Checkup on Android and iOS, which organizes your main settings into simple steps. There’s no Privacy Checkup feature on WhatsApp Web or desktop, but you can still manually adjust each privacy setting.

Archiving conversations

Archiving moves a chat out of your main chat list and into a separate archived section. The conversation is not deleted, and you can read or send new messages in it whenever you choose. The other person sees no change, and they can continue to message or call you as usual. It’s helpful when you want to keep certain conversations out of view without losing the history.

To archive conversations on Android, simply long-press the chat you want to archive and tap Archive. On iOS, you can follow the same steps, or you can swipe left on the relevant conversation to find the Archive option. On WhatsApp Web or the desktop app, right-click on the chat and click Archive.

Depending on your settings, WhatsApp places the Archived folder at either the top or bottom of your chat list. To unarchive a conversation, open the Archived folder, long press the chat on mobile (right-click on desktop), and choose the Unarchive option. On iPhone, you can also swipe left on the chat and tap Unarchive.

Locking chats

Outside of your privacy settings, you can lock individual chats. Locked chats appear in a separate folder at the top of your conversation list and require a preset passcode to view. Depending on your settings, you can also unlock the chats with your phone’s passcode or biometric authentication.

To lock a chat on iOS, long-press it and tap Lock chat. On Android, long press the chat you want to lock, tap the three vertical dots at the top right of the screen, and tap Lock chat.

On WhatsApp Web or the desktop app, right-click on the chat you want to lock and click Lock chat. To unlock the chat, follow the same procedure inside the locked chat folder, but select Unlock chat instead.