How To Appear Offline on Steam [Make Yourself Invisible]

Can You Appear Offline on Steam but Still be Online?

Steam does give the option to the players to make themselves appear as if they're offline to their friends added to the account's friends list. This can be used to steer clear of being seen that you're online by your friends if you're trying to avoid them. 

If your Steam profile is set to Public, then keep in mind this will make you seem invisible to anyone and everyone, even people that are stalking your Steam account!

How to Appear Offline/Invisible on Steam

Besides the option within the Steam client to appear offline, some players simply disable their Internet connection to seem offline. Sure, it may be the silliest to just plug your device off the WiFi, but funnily enough, it works! Just remember that this method only works if you wish to play offline games.

Currently, there are 4 appearance modes that you can choose from on how to seem like to your friends in Steam: Online, Away, Invisible, and Offline. 

The difference between being Offline and Invisible is that Invisible will allow you to chat with friends but appear offline, while the other one disables chatting and the friends list completely.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to set your appearance to being offline on the Steam client:

1. Open up the Steam Client
2. On the top, hover above the "Friends" option
3. Select the "Offline" or "Invisible" option out of the bottom 4 ones

Even though this is the simplest way of making yourself appear offline on Steam, there are multiple ways to make it happen. One such requires you to go to the "View Friends List" option from the Friends tab in the client.

Then by clicking the little arrow beside your username on top of the newly opened window, you can set your Steam appearance, as well as disable chat notifications. 

This way, you can see what friends of yours are online to know whether you should change your appearance on Steam. 

All of these ways of changing your account appearance can be done directly on the Steam client. 

But some players may want to change this option fast on a device that doesn't have the Steam client installed, and maybe even get some free Steam games along the way!

How to Appear Invisible on Steam Through Browser

The browser mode of Steam offers pretty much the same options of the friends' list as the client for chatting and changing your appearance mode to offline. So here's how you can appear offline or invisible on Steam through a browser:

1. Open up your browser and go to the Steam website
2. Log in with your Steam account by clicking on the "login" button on the top right
3. Select the "CHAT" option located at the top of the webpage
4. Click on the little arrow beside your username on the left
5. Set your appearance to "Invisible"

For some reason, the browser version of Steam doesn't offer an "Offline" appearance mode, but it has the "Invisible" mode. As we mentioned above, this will make you appear offline and you can chat with your friends at the same time. However, this will only make your account seem offline and invisible, so you'll want to take extra steps if you want to hide Steam games from your library!

Can People See Your Steam Playtime While You're Offline? 

If your stalker friends are trying really hard to find out whether you're online even though you've set your profile to offline or invisible, they can do it by checking your Steam playtime. Your playtime on Steam will go up while you're playing games with your appearance set to invisible, whether you like it or not! But there is a simple solution to this, and that's to hide the Steam games from friends.