This tutorial will help you in setting up your WhatsApp message notifications if you wish to hide the preview content.
As soon anyone sends you a message on WhatsApp and you’re not on the Chat Window with the person, you receive a notification popping up at the top bar of your device. Whether you’re using any other application or your device is in locked mode, or, you are still using WhatsApp but do not actively chatting in the sender’s window, you always receive notifications for each message received.
Best Ways to Hide WhatsApp Notifications preview on iPhone
Not only WhatsApp but you receive notifications for different purposes. For example, you might receive a notification from iPhone Photos application sending you memory, you can receive notification for emails, any love sports application sending you live scores, blogging app, food ordering app, Message app and etc. There can be a case where you have to take an action, like replying in a messaging app or email, or otherwise other applications send you notification where you do not have to reply.
Generally, all these notifications are received on the device with a preview of few predefined characters by the application developer. There can be a case, but it’s rare these days, where developers do not include preview content. All application notifications preview some initial content by default, whether it is text content or any image. Also, the preview content can be either text of the message or a generic message from the app.
Showing preview content on notification is not managed by iOS. Having said that, it means you cannot control the preview settings from the iPhone settings page. It is the responsibility of an app developer. Therefore, WhatsApp has own settings page from where preview content can be managed. In the iOS settings, there is three types of settings. You can select when you want to show the notification, always, when locked or never. This flow is different in Android, where you can manage to hide notification from the Android OS page.
WhatsApp has both, iPhone as well as Android, versions with a feature where users can hide the preview content when a notification pops up. In such a case, only the sender of the message will be displayed. For example, in WhatsApp if you receive a message from a person then only the name of the person will appear.
Hiding the notification content is customizable, which means you can select the application you want to hide the content. Having said that, hiding the notification does not hide all your notification content.
Read more: How to Stop WhatsApp Saving Photos and Videos to iPhone Camera Roll
Follow these below guidelines for hiding preview content for WhatsApp:
Step #1 If you open iOS Settings
Launch the Settings page and select Notifications. You need to select WhatsApp from the list of all the applications enabled with notifications. Selecting WhatsApp will land on the iOS settings related to
WhatsApp. Here, you do not have any option to hide preview content, but you can select which device state you might want to receive notifications. For hiding the content, you can see there is another option at the bottom of the page saying WhatsApp settings. It will redirect you to the WhatsApp settings page.
Step #2 Launching WhatsApp Settings
You can also directly open the Settings application on the iPhone and select Notifications in it. This step allows you viewing all notifications settings on the for WhatsApp.
Step #3 Turning off the preview
Notifications settings will enlist all types of notifications by WhatsApp. You can find the ‘Show Preview’ option and turn it off. As usual, Apple has it’s native switch, where highlighted mode signifies the feature is on. You can tap on the switch to disable it, turning to light grey or disabled mode.
Following these two steps, you can easily turn off the content preview on your iPhone. Now, you will no longer be able to see the content in the notification. Instead of it, as said, you will only see the name of the sender on notification pop-up.
You always have a choice to get back the preview content back in the notifications pop up. Simply switch it on to the green highlighted state. You will again get all notification content having done it.
Comparing to settings on iOS, the Android OS does not have a customizable feature. If you want to hide the preview content from notification pop up, you need to open the Android Settings page switch off preview content from there. Having said that, all the notifications on the Android device will be restricted showing only the sender of the notification, not just WhatsApp.
Here is how you can hide preview content for WhatsApp notifications on Android devices;
Step #1 Launching Android settings
Open the Android device settings page and select Notifications settings by tapping on the ‘App and notifications’ option.
Step #2 Notifications
Now tap on Notifications and proceed to ‘On lock screen’ option. Here as you can see, you can select an application you would want to turn off the notification. If your application is not under that list, it means all the other applications’ notifications will be sent to the device.
Therefore, on the On lock screen will enlist all the applications that are allowed to send notifications.
Step #3 Hiding sensitive content
Tapping on ‘On lock screen’ will open Android’s native pop up with three options namely, ‘Show all notification content’, ‘Hide sensitive content’ and ‘Don’t show notification’. You need to select hiding sensitive content to restrict all the apps showing preview content on the device. You cannot select only WhatsApp application to restrict showing the preview content. Also, if you select the third option ‘Don’t show notification’, then this application will be removed from the list and listed with other applications that are not allowed to send notification on Android devices.
As we see iOS and Android both OS have different flows and mechanisms for hiding the preview content from the application. Whatsoever be the case, sometimes privacy matters in case of notification users can use the device comfortably. Just a matter of chance, in case you are in a congested place and want to maintain privacy, this trick can obviously help you till you check the content :).
The bottom line; this tutorial helps you to hide preview content for WhatsApp on your iPhone device. Along with it, we also went through the difference between both the OS in terms of preview content privacy. Hope you find this blog useful. If you have any queries relating to Apple, iPhone and Android features, please feel free to jot down anything, we will surely get back to you. For some more helpful blogs, enjoy reading our interesting blogs on your favorite topics.
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