How to Hide Your Last Seen Time in Telegram and What Changes Afterwards

The setting takes three taps, but it comes with a condition attached: hide your own activity and you stop seeing everyone else's. Here's where the switch lives, how to keep exceptions for specific people, and what "last seen recently" actually means.

The short answer

Open Settings → Privacy and Security → Last Seen & Online and choose Nobody. Your "online" status disappears along with the last seen time — it's a single setting covering both.

To hide from some people rather than everyone, leave it on "My Contacts" and add the relevant names to the exception lists. Changes apply immediately, with no need to restart the app.

Where the setting sits on each platform

• Android: side menu → Settings → Privacy and Security → Last Seen & Online.
• iPhone: Settings tab → Privacy and Security → Last Seen & Online.
• Telegram Desktop: Settings → Privacy and Security → the last seen section.
• Telegram Web: Settings → Privacy and Security → Last Seen & Online.

Labels vary slightly between versions, but the option always lives in the privacy block, next to the settings for your profile photo and phone number.

The three options and what they mean in practice

• Everybody. Your exact last seen time and online status are visible to anyone who opens your profile, including people who don't have your number.
• My Contacts. Only people saved in your contacts see the exact time; everyone else gets an approximate status. The middle ground most people settle on.
• Nobody. No one sees the exact time except the people you add to the exceptions by hand.

The exception lists work in both directions: "Never Share With" hides your activity from specific people even on the "My Contacts" setting, while "Always Share With" opens it up to chosen people even on "Nobody". Whole contact groups can be added too.

The main trade-off: you stop seeing other people's activity

Telegram enforces reciprocity. The moment you hide your exact last seen from someone, that person stops being transparent to you as well — instead of a precise time you get a vague label.

The approximate statuses look like this:

• last seen recently — a visit within the past few days;
• last seen within a week and last seen within a month — the corresponding ranges;
• last seen a long time ago — no activity for an extended period, or the person has closed this information off entirely.

Telegram doesn't publish the exact boundaries of these ranges and has adjusted them over time, so treat them as a rough guide rather than a measuring instrument.

One more detail: Telegram Premium subscribers are exempt from the reciprocity rule — they can hide their own activity and still see other people's. With an important caveat: the subscription only removes the penalty on your side. It won't reveal the last seen of someone who has hidden it from you specifically — Premium doesn't override anyone else's privacy. Telegram revises subscription features periodically, so if this is your reason for buying it, check that it still works this way.

Hiding your activity from specific people only

1. Open the Last Seen & Online section.
2. Leave the main option as it is — "Everybody" or "My Contacts".
3. Go into "Never Share With".
4. Add the people you want from your contact list and confirm.

This is the better route when you only need to hide from one or two people: everyone else still sees the exact time, and you keep seeing theirs.

What this setting doesn't hide

• The "typing" indicator. While you're composing a message, the other person sees it in the chat regardless of your last seen settings.
• Read receipts. An opened message is marked as read. Hiding read times in small groups is a separate feature that comes with the subscription.
• Story views. The author of a story sees who opened it; that's controlled by its own setting.
• Profile photo, phone number and other details. Each has its own privacy switch, and Last Seen doesn't affect them.
• The existence of your account. Your profile can still be found by username or number unless you've limited that separately.

How to check that it worked

You can't verify this from your own profile — you always see yourself with an exact time. Two methods actually work.

1. Ask someone. Have a person who isn't on your exception list open your profile and tell you what appears under your name.
2. Look from a second account. If you have another profile, open yourself from it — with the settings applied, you'll see the approximate status.

Still showing the exact time? Check in order: whether that person is on your "Always Share With" list, whether they're saved in your contacts while you're on "My Contacts", whether the app is up to date, and whether they're looking at a cached profile card — it refreshes the next time they open the chat.

Related settings worth reviewing while you're there

Since you're already in the privacy section, it's worth going through the rest — they cover what the activity setting doesn't:

• Phone number — who sees it on your profile and who can find you by it.
• Profile photo — with exceptions for individual contacts.
• Calls — who is allowed to ring you directly.
• Forwarded messages — whether your name is linked when you're quoted.
• Group invites — protection from being added to chats by strangers.
• Separating personal from work. If you're hiding your activity so that clients and colleagues can't track your schedule, the real fix is often a second profile rather than a setting: work conversations on one account, personal ones on another. The Telegram accounts available on Fire Accs serve exactly that, and your personal number stays out of it.

Common mistakes

• Expecting to disappear while still watching everyone else. Without the subscription it doesn't work that way — reciprocity can't be switched off.
• Checking the result on your own profile. You always look normal to yourself. Ask a friend, or open your profile from another account.
• Confusing blocking with hiding activity. Blocking severs the connection entirely; hiding only removes the visit time.
• Setting "Nobody" and wondering why "last seen recently" still shows. The approximate label always remains — no setting removes every trace of activity.
• Trusting bots that promise to "show who visited you". Those services simply poll public statuses on a schedule; once you're on "Nobody" there's nothing left for them to read, while the account access they ask for is very real.

FAQ

Will the other person know I hid my activity?

No notification is sent. They may notice indirectly: the familiar timestamp is replaced by a vague status.

Can I hide only the online status and keep the last seen time?

No, it's a single parameter — either both are hidden or neither is.

Is my activity visible in groups and channels?

Statuses in member lists follow the same settings. Your messages in a chat are always visible, though — they have nothing to do with activity privacy.

What do people I've blocked see?

Not the exact time in any case — blocking closes off both the profile and the activity.

Does hiding activity help against spam and scammers?

Partly: bad actors often time their approach to when someone is online. But the settings for phone-number search and group invites do more against unwanted messages.

Why do I still see the exact time for some contacts?

Because they're sharing it with you — they've added you to their "Always Share With" list, or they're on "Everybody".

Can anyone find the exact last seen of someone who hid it?

No. The server simply doesn't hand that data to people it's closed to, so "online trackers" record the same approximate statuses you can see yourself.

Does reinstalling the app reset the setting?

No. Privacy settings are stored on the server and come back with the account on any device.

The takeaway

Hiding your last seen is one switch in the privacy section, with two caveats: without the subscription you lose access to other people's exact statuses, and an approximate label like "last seen recently" always remains. If you only need to hide from particular people, the exception lists do the job more precisely than the "Nobody" mode.