How to appear offline in Steam: Hide your gameplay activity and play in secret on Steam


Sometimes you want to shut away from the world, and appearing offline on Steam can help with that.

Whether if it's playing through Yakuza 0 or an Assassin’s Creed entry, there will be a time where you will just want to be totally immersed in a game, without being distracted by a message, or if someone has come online.

[sc name="retro"]

In the last few years, Valve has introduced a few updates which have made it easier for the player to better control how they play a game, such as backing up purchases to another location, while being able to simply assign the ‘screenshot’ key to wherever you desire.

With that, here’s a guide to help you appear invisible in plain sight on Steam, so you can complete a game with next to no distractions...

How to appear offline on Steam

If you just want to ‘appear offline’ just how you used to back in the MSN Messenger days, simply go to the menu bar, and go to ‘Friends’, and select ‘Offline’.

This way, your ‘Activity’ will still be shown whenever you’re playing a game, but you won’t be visible to your friends.

This is great, but there is another way to go one step further. Go to your username in the same Steam window, and go to your ‘Profile’.

Currently, the default will be set to ‘Public’, which means that anyone will see what game you’re playing, and the achievements you’ve earned so far. Simply switching it to ‘Private’ will make you completely invisible.

READ MORE:Valve patents new Steam controller

Why appear offline on Steam?

With those two options, you can either give the impression that you’re sleeping when you’re not, while the other setting essentially turns you into Solid Snake.

Sometimes you just want to be rid of the distractions that Steam can sometimes bring, and just turning invisible for an evening can really help drown out the noises.

Especially with a few games over the horizon that are coming to Steam, using these two options may help keep that immersion with a game intact.

Of course, using peripherals like noise-cancelling headphones can help elevate the feeling of being silent to the Steam-world and the outside-world even more, but being in stealth-camouflage on Steam will be just enough for an evening of gaming.

READ MORE:How to improve your Steam layout

For more articles like this, take a look at our How To page.