How to Hide WhatsApp Channels on Android and iPhone

In Summary

Recently, WhatsApp introduced a new feature called WhatsApp Channels in its update. With this feature, you can stay connected and receive updates from your favorite celebrities, influencers, organizations, and associations without sharing your number or personal information.
Although this feature allows people to get updates from their favorite sources in a very convenient way, it also causes inconvenience for other people who don’t like cluttered interfaces.
In this blog, we will show you how to hide WhatsApp channels on Android and iPhone.

Tech giant and parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta, keeps releasing updates with new features for its social media platforms. Recently, Meta rolled out an update for WhatsApp that introduced a new feature called WhatsApp Channels. This feature allows one-way communication between you and your favorite celebrity, influencer, sports star or media outlet without sharing your personal number or information with them. In this sense, this feature is a breakthrough because it gives you the opportunity to get information from your favorite source in WhatsApp.

However, many users found this feature annoying and unnecessary, and even criticized the company Meta for turning WhatsApp into another social media platform. If you are one of those who find this feature unnecessary and want to hide WhatsApp Channels from your Status section, we will show you some methods to hide them. However, these are only temporary methods and Meta doesn’t have a permanent solution for it yet. For a permanent solution, you need to reset the previous version of WhatsApp.

Table of Contents

How to Hide WhatsApp Channels on Android?

If you use an Android smartphone, there are several ways to get rid of WhatsApp channels.

Permanent Method: Using the Previous Version of WhatsApp

The only permanent solution to get rid of the distracting WhatsApp Channels is to roll back to the previous version. The previous versions of WhatsApp didn’t have the Channels feature, so you can still get your old interface back. So if you haven’t updated to the new version of WhatsApp yet, you shouldn’t do it if you don’t want the Channels feature.

If you have already updated it, you need to uninstall the current version of WhatsApp and install the previous version (Version 2.23.18.75 or earlier).

However, make sure that you have backed up your chats and data before uninstalling WhatsApp.

Here’s how to do it:

Open WhatsApp > Three vertical dots top right menu > Settings > Chats > Chat backup > Backup

After successful backup, uninstall the current version of WhatsApp application and download the previous version of WhatsApp. Always use trusted sources to download the application.

Temporary Method: Hiding WhatsApp Channels in the Updates Menu

If you don’t want to uninstall the current version of WhatsApp, but you want to hide the channels from your interface, you can do that temporarily. However, since this is a temporary solution, it’ll be reset when you close the app and open it again. So you have to repeat this process every time you want to hide the channels. However, since it’s a straightforward process, you won’t notice much.

This is how you do it:

WhatsApp > Updates > View Updates

This way, the channels will be pushed down to the bottom of the status page and you won’t see them hovering on the top of your screen. This is a temporary solution to avoid being distracted by the channels.

How to Hide WhatsApp Channels on iPhone?

If you’re an iPhone user, you can only temporarily hide WhatsApp Channels. This is mainly because iPhones have strict security parameters that prevent users from installing apps from sources other than the Apple Store. Also, you can’t revert to previous versions in the Apple Store due to Apple’s strict app distribution policies. So you are left with only a temporary solution.

Here’s how to do it:

WhatsApp > Updates > View Updates

This will declutter your WhatsApp interface and move the channels to the bottom of the status page. Since this setting is reset every time you close and reopen the WhatsApp app, you may have to repeat the process every time it distracts you.

Wrap Up – Distraction Free WhatsApp

If you don’t like the new interface or find WhatsApp channels distracting, you can easily hide them. Using the methods described above, you can temporarily hide this new feature or get rid of it permanently by going back to the previous version of the WhatsApp app. And if we’re lucky, Meta might offer a permanent solution to this problem soon. Until then, I wish you a distraction-free WhatsApp.

FAQs About Hiding WhatsApp Channels

1. How to unfollow a WhatsApp Channel?

You can delete any WhatsApp Channel that you have been following from the Updates section. Here’s how to do it:

Open WhatsApp
Go to Updates
Go to the Channel you want to unfollow
Tap on the Three Vertical Dots menu at the top right corner
Tap on Unfollow
Confirm the action by tapping on Unfollow again

2. How to mute notifications for a channel on WhatsApp?

WhatsApp channel notifications are muted by default. However, if you accidentally turned on notifications for a specific WhatsApp channel, you can mute them as follows: