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You don’t want to share every game you’re playing on Steam with everyone on your friend’s list. If you’re playing a game that can be multiplayer, sometimes you’d instead stick to the single-player version without having to bring friends with you, or you might want to play it offline. To prevent others from seeing you play a game, you have the option to hide what game you’re playing. In this guide, we detail how you can go about hiding a game you’re playing on Steam.

The best way to prevent others from seeing what game you’re currently playing is to go Offline or Invisible. You can do this directly from the Friends & Chat option on the bottom-left of your Steam page. Click it, and you’ll see a chat box appear where you can view all of the games your friends are currently playing. Then, click the down arrow next to your name at the top left to bring up various status-changing options.

Screenshot by Gamepur

You want to select the Invisible or Offline option. This way, no one on your friend’s list can directly see what game you’re playing, and if anyone searches for you on Steam, they cannot see the game, either.

If you want to prevent people from seeing how much time you’ve put into a game and hide it that way, it’s a bit more of a process. You can do this by clicking on your account name on the top left of the Steam menu and then selecting Profile. You’ll see a large profile page displaying your account’s badges, games, your rarest achievement showcase, and your recent activity.

Then, on the right side, click the Edge Profile icon. You’ll be able to edit all of your displayed profile settings from this area, and on the left side, you need to go down to Privacy Settings. From there, you can select to hide your Game Details, making them Public, Friends Only, or Private, so you can choose how much your gaming history openly appears.

About the author

Zack Palm

Zack Palm is the Senior Writer of Gamepur and has spent over five years covering video games, and earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Oregon State University. He spends his free time biking, running tabletop campaigns, and listening to heavy metal. His primary game beats are Pokémon Go, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy XIV, and any newly released title, and he finds it difficult to pull away from any Star Wars game.

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