Whether you’re worried about your kids staying awake texting late at night, or suspect your partner is cheating on you, you might want to get notified when they come online on WhatsApp.
Note: This is a knowledge-based article that addresses a niche concern. 7labs does not endorse stalking or any violation of the users’ privacy, and may not be held responsible for any misuse of the information provided in this article.
Can I get notification when someone is online on WhatsApp?
Officially, there is no feature available on WhatsApp that allows you to get notified when someone comes online.
You can usually check the last seen time of a particular contact on WhatsApp, provided they haven’t turned it off in the apps’ privacy settings.
But if they turn off last seen sharing, the only way to track if someone is online on WhatsApp is to open the specific chat within the particular app from time to time and look for the online indicator, which is quite a daunting task.
Even if it’s not supported officially, there are a few third-party solutions that enable you to get notification when someone is online on WhatsApp, without having to check manually.
In this article, we’ll explore how to know if someone is online on WhatsApp, using a third-party iPhone and Android app, available on the App Store & Play Store.
How to get notified when someone is online on WhatsApp (Android/iOS)
A few third-party apps allow you to track if someone is online on WhatsApp by adding their contact number in the app. These apps operate by creating automated bots that track whenever the target contact is online or offline and logging the timestamp for whenever the state changes.
By looking at the log, you can easily check when the target user was online, even if they might have turned off last seen sharing in the official WhatsApp app.
Essentially, these apps take over the painful, redundant task of manually verifying the online status of the target, and automate it.
The app we are going to use in this article is called Netwa. You might be able to find other apps that provide similar tracking features.
- Go to the website of Netwa online tracker.
- Tap on the Download button. You will be given two links to download the app either for iOS or Android.
- Tap on the platform of your preference and download the app.
- Open the app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
- Tap the “+” icon from the top-right corner.
- Select the service (WhatsApp) on which the contact you want to track is.
- Enter the phone number or username of the person you want to track.
- Enter a nickname for the profile or account.
Once a profile has been added for tracking, you can do the following:
- Tap on the profile to see when the person is online on WhatsApp
- Enable or disable notifications for when the person comes online. By default, notifications are on, but you can disable them for specific contacts by turning off the toggle next to a particular profile.
- You can end the tracking for a specific contact by swiping from the right and tapping Delete.
Does Netwa Online Tracker work with Telegram?
Yes and no. While Netwa officially supports three social platforms, namely Telegram, WhatsApp, and VK.com, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to track a Telegram profile using Netwa or other similar apps.
This is because Telegram has introduced a privacy feature that allows you to hide the Online status in addition to the Last Seen time, and by default, it’s set to My Contacts. Thus, on Telegram, by default, people who are not on your contact list (including apps like Netwa), won’t be able to see your “Online” status. You can change the setting to Everyone and make your online status public, but most users would just prefer to keep the default setting.
One thing to note here though is that apps like Netwa are mostly paid subscription-based services. Netwa lets you try the service for free for a limited time, after which it charges $9.99 for tracking up to 4 profiles per month, or $24.99 for tracking up to 10 profiles per month.
For each user you want to track, for each platform, the service needs to run a dedicated bot continuously, for as long as you keep the tracking active, which consumes significant server resources. Hence, the developer charges a subscription fee to the user that helps to maintain the servers and keep the service active.
It’s not an ideal or cost-effective solution to track and get notified when someone is online on WhatsApp, but unless there is official support, this is the best that any third-party service can provide. And if tracking the particular person(s) is important to you, this might just be the app for you, if you’re willing to pay the monthly subscription.