How to Hide Status and Archived Chats on WhatsApp Web (2026)

Your WhatsApp Web sidebar has a Status section you never post to and an Archived row for chats you archived in 2023 and haven't thought about since. Both sit there permanently, taking up the top of your chat list, every single day.

The good news: WhatsApp gives you more control here than most people realise — genuinely useful settings that are quietly buried and rarely used. The less good news: none of them actually remove either section from your screen.

Here's both halves — what WhatsApp lets you do, and how to get rid of them entirely.

Part 1: Archived Chats

The setting almost nobody has turned on

Before hiding anything, there's a WhatsApp setting worth knowing about, because it fixes the most annoying thing about Archive.

By default, archiving a chat is temporary. Someone messages you and the chat jumps straight back into your main list. You archive it again. They message again. It comes back. Archiving becomes pointless for exactly the chats you most want out of the way — the noisy ones.

Keep chats archived fixes this. With it on, archived chats stay archived when new messages arrive. WhatsApp's own documentation is explicit: a new message leaves the chat in Archived unless this setting is turned off.

To turn it on (it's a phone setting, and it syncs to WhatsApp Web):

Android: WhatsApp → three-dot menu → Settings → Chats → toggle on Keep chats archived
iPhone: WhatsApp → Settings → Chats → toggle on Keep chats archived

Now archiving actually means something. That group of 200 people planning an event you attended once? Archive it and it's genuinely gone until you go looking.

What archiving does and doesn't do

Worth being clear, because archiving is widely misunderstood:

The other person is never notified. Archiving is completely invisible to them.
Nothing is deleted. Full history stays, and archived chats remain searchable.
It's not privacy. Anyone with your unlocked screen can open the Archived folder. For actual hiding, use Chat Lock.
Archived chats can still notify you unless you also mute them. Archive tidies your list; mute silences alerts. Do both.

Hiding the Archived row itself

Even with everything configured perfectly, the Archived row still sits at the top of your chat list. WhatsApp has no setting to remove it.

That's Part 3 below.

Part 2: Status

What WhatsApp actually lets you control

Status has real privacy settings — they just don't hide the section.

Control who sees your status (phone → Settings → Privacy → Status):

My contacts
My contacts except…
Only share with…

Mute someone's status updates: open the Status/Updates tab on your phone, press and hold their update, tap Mute. They're never told, and their updates stop appearing at the front of your view.

Mute every contact whose updates you don't care about and the Status section quietens down considerably. But it doesn't disappear.

The thing you can't do

There is no setting to remove Status from WhatsApp Web. You can control who sees yours, and mute everyone else's, and the section still occupies your sidebar. If you don't post status and don't watch anyone else's — which is most people — it's pure dead weight.

Part 3: Removing Both From Your Sidebar

WhatsApp Web won't hide them. Your browser will.

WhatsApp Web Customizer is a free, open-source Chrome extension with visibility toggles for exactly the sections WhatsApp won't let you turn off.

Install it from the Chrome Web Store (~30 seconds)
Open web.whatsapp.com → click the extension icon
Go to the Display tab
Switch off Status and Archive

Gone. Immediately.

Want only one of them? Use the individual toggles rather than Minimal Mode — hide Archive, keep Status, or the reverse. Whatever you actually use, stays.

Want the full clean-up? Turn on Minimal Mode and it also hides Channels and locked chats. What's left is a list of conversations and nothing else.

Important: this is purely visual, on your machine. Your archived chats still exist and are still searchable. Your status still works. Your account and your phone are untouched. You're simply not being shown sections you don't use.

The Recommended Setup

Putting it together — the configuration most people end up happy with:

Turn on Keep chats archived (phone → Settings → Chats). Archiving finally works properly.
Archive aggressively. Every group you're in out of obligation, every chat that isn't active. It's reversible and nobody knows.
Mute the status updates you don't care about.
Hide Status and Archive from the sidebar with the extension.

Total time: about three minutes. The result is a WhatsApp Web that shows you conversations you actually have, and nothing else.

Why WhatsApp Won't Ship This

Every section WhatsApp adds to your sidebar is a surface they want engaged with. A toggle that hides Status would reduce Status usage. That's a straightforward business reason, and it's theirs to weigh.

The counter-argument is just as simple: it's your screen. If you never post a status and archived that group two years ago, being shown both permanently isn't a feature — it's a tax.

WhatsApp Web is a webpage, and an extension can restyle a webpage. That's the entire mechanism. The extension is open source on GitHub — it never reads your messages, it only hides elements your browser is already rendering.

The Bottom Line

Archive: turn on Keep chats archived on your phone — it's the setting that makes archiving actually work, and most people have never found it. Then hide the Archived row with the extension.

Status: control who sees yours and mute the rest natively; hide the section entirely with the extension.

Neither can be removed through WhatsApp itself. Both take about thirty seconds with a free extension.

👉 Install WhatsApp Web Customizer, open the Display tab, switch them off.

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