One of the most common buzzwords among gamers, Steam, is an online gaming platform on which gamers can connect to play multiplayer online games. Steam also acts as a desktop game store where you can purchase and download games. Steam desktop application even let’s you chat with your online friends with both text and voice. Once you are signed in to Steam desktop client, it will always keep your status online to your friends. It also notifies your friends when you are coming online or playing a particular game on Steam. However in some cases, you might not want to let your friends know that you are on Steam or playing a game on it. To make your real online status hidden or invisible to your Steam friends, you need to set your profile mode to offline.
As many Steam users can’t figure out how to do this, I have made a visual guide on making yourself appear offline on Steam. This doesn’t make you sign out from Steam account, it just hides your online status. You can continue to play games without notifying others.
Guide to make yourself Offline on Steam
- On Steam Window, click on VIEW FRIENDS LIST from left-bottom corner.
- Under Friends window, click on the Arrow icon next to your name.
- Here you can set your status to Offline, Away or Busy (Steam automatically change your status to Away if you are not playing or using Steam for a given amount of time).
- That’s it.
With this, you too cannot see your online friends or their status.
How to Prevent Steam from Automatically Signing in to Friends when started (Make Offline Status Default)
- Go to Steam Settings from Steam > Settings from toolbar.
- Under Friends tab, uncheck the option “Automatically sign in to friends when I start to Steam“.
- Click OK.
This will stop Steam from making yourself online when it starts.
Note: Settings your profile status to offline and going offline mode on Steam is two different things. You shouldn’t confuse each other.