Playing games on Steam is a great experience. It’s possible to download so many different games, and you’ll often be able to purchase titles at discounted prices due to how often Steam sales occur.
Sometimes you might feel like taking a chance on a strange game that you wouldn’t normally play.
There might be some titles that you’d like to try out, but you’re afraid that your friends will make fun of you for playing them (*cough* Hentai *cough*).
After all, your Steam friends will be able to see the games that you’re playing right?
Well, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. You can hide games from friends on Steam if you know what you’re doing.
Did you know that you can also share your Steam games with friends and family?
Read on to learn how to hide games from friends on Steam you won’t have to be embarrassed about playing certain titles.
How to Hide What I’m Playing
You might be asking yourself, “how can I hide what I’m playing?” It’s simpler than you might think, but many people just don’t know how to do it.
To start, you should know that there are a few different things that you can do. When you wish to hide games from friends as you’re playing them, it’s going to be necessary to set your status to “invisible.”
If you want to hide certain games from showing up on your profile, then you’ll need to prevent people from being able to see your profile.
There are also more complex things that you can do such as hiding games from specific friends and hiding recent Steam activity. Keep reading to learn more about these individual topics.
Hide Steam Game Activity by Going Invisible
Going invisible is going to allow you to hide your game activity. Your friends won’t be able to see that you’re online. They also won’t be able to see which game you’re playing while the invisible status is toggled on. It’s very simple to do this since you just need to change a setting.
- Open up the Steam client and then go to “friends & chat” in the bottom right corner.
- Select the drop-down menu that is next to your username and you should see several options.
- Click on “invisible” so that the box is checked.
You’ll still have one more thing that you’ll need to do if you want to hide game activity while still appearing online, but this will help you while you’re appearing offline.
Hiding Specific Steam Games
Start the game that you want to hide while appearing invisible.
Now start up a second game that you don’t mind people seeing and return to appearing available. This is going to make it so that your profile will show that you’re playing the second game instead of the first one that you’re embarrassed about. It’s a simple trick that works well.
You can also hide games from your library by right-clicking, selecting manage, and then choosing “hide this game.”
This keeps the game from showing up in your library so that others who have access to your Steam account won’t know that you have it. It’s good for those who share Steam accounts with significant others or family members.
Setting Your Account to Private
Setting your account to private is the true way to hide your game activity from friends.
To do this, first, open Steam. Then follow these steps:
This content was first published on GameDaft.com
- Click on your username so that you can access your profile.
- Go to the privacy settings and then go to the game details drop-down menu.
- Select “private” so that your profile will not show any information to anyone.
With private selected, no one will be able to look at your game activity on Steam.
Sadly, this means that friends won’t be able to see anything that you’re doing no matter what. There’s no way to pick and choose what they see.
If you go back to a selection such as “friends only,” then your friends will be able to see your Steam activity again.
Hiding Games From Specific Friends
Hiding games from specific friends is possible if you block communications with them:
- Open Steam and then navigate to “friends & chat” in the bottom right corner.
- Select your friend’s name and then click manage. You can now select to block all communications.
This makes it appear as though you’re always offline to that friend. They won’t know that you blocked all communication with them.
If you return the settings to normal, then that friend will be able to see your activity again. It’s not a permanent solution because of this.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jan has played video games since the early 1980s. He loves getting immersed in video games as a way to take his mind off stuff when the outside world gets too scary. A lifelong gamer, the big interest led to a job as a lecturer on game sound at the University of Copenhagen and several written articles on video games for magazines.