The Student Room Group

how to appear offline in steam?

is it possible to appear offline to friends in steam while at the same time playing online in games like team fortress 2 and counter strike source?

if so how?
Reply 1
Original post by fuzzybear
is it possible to appear offline to friends in steam while at the same time playing online in games like team fortress 2 and counter strike source?

if so how?


On your friends list there should be a little arrow next to your name. Click on it and a menu appears. Click Busy/Away/Online/Offline whatever you want to appear as.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by legion99
On your friends list there should be a little arrow next to your name. Click on it and a menu appears. Click Busy/Away/Online/Offline whatever you want to appear as.


thanks, after i do this would i still be able to play online?

also, is there a way to appear offline automatically when i log on - it would be a slight hassle to momentarily appear online
Reply 3
thanks, after i do this would i still be able to play online?

Yes you can still play online.

also, is there a way to appear offline automatically when i log on - it would be a slight hassle to momentarily appear online

Yes. If you have the feature off when you go offline it will stay off OR you will get a dialog box which says 'Your appearing offline do you want to change this?'.

EDIT: You won't be able to change your steam display picture while offline (kinda relevant?) but you can still change your name :P
Reply 4
Original post by Dastrea

Yes. If you have the feature off when you go offline it will stay off OR you will get a dialog box which says 'Your appearing offline do you want to change this?'.

EDIT: You won't be able to change your steam display picture while offline (kinda relevant?) but you can still change your name :P


It automatically goes to 'appear offline' when i log in now, but next to my name in the little 'my friends' box, it shows the time since i've last been online which gives away when i was online (so it would say 5 secs, 10 secs, 15 secs etc....). I expected it to indicate when i was last online as in appearing online to my friends which is 20 mins ago when i change my status settings according from your post. So what I want to know is, would my friends still see when i was last online (online on steam, but appear offline to friends) as I am able to?
Yeah, they will if I remember rightly. You still appear in server lists (I think?) under friends, too.
Reply 6
dunno if i explained the 'last online time' problem properly in the last post, heres someone else with the same/similar problem who probably explains it better:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1574775

basicaly it defeats the purpose of appearing offline if friends could see when was the last time you were online was something like 10mins ago, when you want it to be something like 5 hours ago (i.e the last time you appeared online to them)
Reply 7
Just block your friends, then they can't see "last online" time either.

(You'll also need a private profile, or the whole thing is even more pointless).
Reply 8
It stops people messaging you :P

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