WhatsApp is a secure platform for exchanging instant messages and chatting with friends or family, it allows users to message other users just by having their phone number. While this feature adds for a lot of conveniences, it also means that there will be a few who will misuse or abuse the service to spam and harass users. WhatsApp has already thought of this and comes with a block feature allowing you to prevent a certain user from messaging or contact you in any form.
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By blocking a user on WhatsApp, you disable any form of communication and the user will not be able to see your WhatsApp profile picture or status, this helps people protect their privacy and prevent unauthorized users from invading on the privacy.
If your messages on WhatsApp are not getting delivered to a user or if you are unable to contact them using voice or video call, then either they might have uninstalled the application from their smartphone or might have blocked your account. Here are a few steps that you can follow to see if you have been blocked.
How to Know if You Have Been Blocked on WhatsApp
It is important to know that there is no guaranteed way of finding out if you have been blocked by a user, WhatsApp explicitly states that the steps to check if you have been blocked are slightly ambiguous to protect the privacy of the user. You can try the steps below to see if you have been blocked on WhatsApp:
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1) Check for the Last Seen or Online in the Chat Window of the Contact
This is the first and the easiest way to check if you have been blocked, if you can see the Last seen or Online details of a user then you can be rest assured that they have not blocked you. However, this is a very ambiguous step as there is no confirmation that they contact may have just changed their last seen settings to hide the details from others.
While the last seen details being shown in the chat window clearly means that you are not blocked, it cannot be taken as a conclusive step to know if you have been blocked or not.
2) Look for the updates in the Contact’s profile
In case a user has blocked you on WhatsApp then the profile picture of the user and the about status of the user will never change, it will forever remain the same as when you were blocked by the user.
If you notice that the Profile Picture and the About Status of a user has remained the same for an abnormal amount of time, then it might be a sign that your account has been blocked by the user. While this is an official sign of the user being blocked, it is not conclusive as the reason for this might just be that the user has not updated their profile picture in a while.
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3) Try Sending a Message to the Contact
If you have been blocked by the user in question here, you will not be able to reach the user via instant messaging. Any message that you send to a blocked will only show a single tick, this indicates that the message was sent from your side but never updated to a double tick mark meaning that the message was never delivered to the receiver.
This is a more concrete indication that the user might have blocked you on WhatsApp. If your messages consistently fail to deliver to the user, then either the user has uninstalled the application from their smartphone or has blocked you from their contacts and thus you are unable to send the messages.
4) Try Performing an Audio Call to the Contact
Any attempts to make a voice call or a video call to the user will go futile, the user will not be receiving any sort of communication from you if they have blocked you. If you have been blocked, you will either be unable to call, or the call screen will only show “Calling” instead of “Ringing”.
While this might simply mean that the user is offline at that instance, if this continues multiple times then it might be concluded that the user has blocked you on WhatsApp and thus you are unable to perform calls or have any sort of communication.
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5) Try Creating a WhatsApp Group with the Contact
You will not be able to create a WhatsApp Group with the user or even add the said user to an existing group. This might be more conclusive proof that you have been blocked by the user. This is perhaps the best way of confirming that you have been blocked by the user if all the above methods turn out to be true.
