No. It makes sense that you’d be concerned about that. Social media notifies about so many actions, that you might think taking a screenshot would trigger a warning. However, a quick review of how WhatsApp works will highlight why it doesn’t provide a notification.
Hi, I’m Aaron. I’m a technology professional and software architecture is one of the many things I get to think about on a daily basis.
Let’s dig into what a screenshot is, how WhatsApp works at a very high level, and why that means it doesn’t alert users when a screenshot is taken.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- A screenshot or a screen capture is a snapshot your computer takes of the screen as of the moment the screenshot is taken.
- WhatsApp operates largely remotely with a limited presence on your device.
- Consequently, WhatsApp doesn’t detect or alert when you take a screenshot.
Screenshots and Screen Captures
A screenshot is a picture of your screen at the moment you take the screenshot. If you’re at a computer, you can hit the PrtSc or Print Screen button to take a screenshot. On your iOS or Android device, you can press the specific button combination to do so.
When you press those buttons, software built into your device’s Operating System snapshots the screen exactly as it appears.
It’s important to note that action happens entirely locally to your device. You don’t need an internet connection to take a screenshot and your device doesn’t need to communicate with an external device or service to take the screenshot.
How WhatsApp Works
WhatsApp is a messaging platform. It runs in massive cloud environments that process communications and provide data storage. In fact, most of the activity you see in the WhatsApp app happens in the cloud, remotely to your device.
That being said, the WhatsApp app provides a user interface into that cloud environment. You install it locally to your device and it lets you interact with the service running in the cloud. Alternatively, you can access WhatsApp via the web and forego installing an app.
The WhatsApp app interacts with your device to provide notifications, parse phone calls, and store chats and files locally. All those actions must be explicitly developed; if functionality isn’t developed, then it just doesn’t happen.
How That Relates to Screenshots
As of the writing of this article, the WhatsApp app doesn’t search for screenshot activity. Since it doesn’t collect that information, it doesn’t know when you take a screenshot. If it doesn’t know that you’re taking a screenshot, it won’t alert to that.
That means that WhatsApp won’t alert to you taking a screenshot.
FAQs
Here are some answers to popular questions related to WhatsApp screenshot alerts.
Can You See Who Screenshots Your WhatsApp Picture?
No. WhatsApp can’t detect and doesn’t alert so screenshots or screen captures.
What Apps Notify Screenshots?
Snapchat and Instagram are among the few apps that notify when screenshots are taken. There are methods for circumventing that detection and notification functionality, however, so it’s not a foolproof way of determining if someone took a screenshot of your information.
Can Someone See How Many Times I Viewed Their WhatsApp Status?
No. WhatsApp doesn’t tell you who viewed your WhatsApp status or how many times that’s happened.
Conclusion
Screenshots are entirely local actions you can take on your device. WhasApp is a web-based service with local apps to interact with it. Those apps don’t collect the information necessary to track screenshots and therefore don’t alert for them.
Do you have fun WhatsApp anecdotes? Let me know in the comments below!