Steam and Game Activities: How to Hide from Friends?

Steam, one of the world’s most popular platforms for online gaming, offers a variety of options to control your visibility. Steam has multiple settings to help you control visibility. Whether it is for privacy or to prevent spoilers from being revealed, Steam can be used as a way of limiting your game activity. You can learn Steam and Game Activities: How to Hide from Friends?

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Why is it necessary to hide game and Steam activities?

Steam allows you to choose whether or not your Steam activities are visible.

Privacy: Your friends shouldn’t be able to see your games.
Avoiding questions: Perhaps you play a game which you would rather others not know about.
Surprise factor: you’re streaming or reviewing a game while playing it.

Working or studying mode: you don’t wish to be seen by your co-workers or family.

Steam offers you complete control of the game activity that is visible to others.

What is the best way to hide your Steam games and game activities?

Steam provides different options to conceal your gaming activity. Here are some of the best ways to remain private when playing.

Change your Steam privacy settings

Steam lets you choose who is allowed to see your gaming activity.

How to hide your Steam game activity

Click on the profile picture (upper right corner) to open Steam.

Click on “View My Profile” in the dropdown menu.
On the right, click “Edit profile“.
Choose the “Privacy” tab.

Change the visibility of “Game Details” to:

You can only see the game activity that you have chosen to make private.

You can only share your activity with friends.

To save your changes, click “Save“.

The setting completely conceals your gaming activity, achievement and playing time.

Hide your game activity temporarily (Friends & Chat settings)

Steam chat options can be used to temporarily hide your game.

How to appear offline on Steam

Click on the Friends & Chat tab (bottom right corner) of Steam.

To view your personal profile, click on the icon.
Choose “Invisible mode” or “Offline mode”.

You can play normal games while appearing offline.

Your friends won’t be able to see what you are doing online or in games.

Steam Family View can be used to hide games

Family View hides certain games in your library.

How to enable Family View

Open Steam Settings (Click “Steam” > “Settings”).
Manage Family View by clicking on “Family”.
Choose the games that you wish to hide.

To restrict access, set a PIN.

Your friends won’t be able to see hidden games.

Family View can be toggled on/off at any time.

Hide your Playtime, Achievements and Score

If you choose to hide the game, your friends will still be able to see it unless they hide it separately.

How to hide Playtime and Achievements

Follow Step 1 of this guide to go to privacy settings.

Under “Game details”, select “Private”.
Click on “Save” to save the file.

You can hide your achievements and total number of hours from other players.

Steam web browser: Use the Private mode

Use the private mode of your browser if you do not want Steam to track your activity.

How to use Steam Web Private Mode

Launch a browser (Chrome Firefox Edge).

Press Ctrl + Shift + N (Incognito Mode in Chrome).
Visit store.steampowered.com and log in.
You can browse or manage your account without saving the history.

Steam will no longer track your browsing activity.

Removing Recent Games From Your Profile

You may see recent games even after you hide them.

Removing Recent Games

Open Steam Library.
Select “Manage” by right clicking on a particular game.
Select “Hide the game” by clicking on it.

Remove the game from both your activity feed and profile.

FAQs on Steam Privacy and Activity

What can I play if my profile is set to private?

No. When you select Private for your Game Details, no one can see what your friends are doing.

Can I restrict my friends from seeing what games I play?

Steam does not support selective hiding. But you can remove or temporarily block someone.

Hide my activity in game also means hide my achievements

Yes. When you select Private for Game Details, your playtime, game achievements and other activity will be hidden.

What happens if I choose to be “Invisible” in Steam?

It only conceals your status as online. If you want to conceal game activity, change your Privacy Settings.

Can I make my Steam activity private, but still allow friends access?

If you want to play with your friends only, then yes.

Conclusion

Knowing the settings is key to hiding your Steam activity and other games. With Privacy Settings or Invisible Mode you can decide who will see your games.

You can play in privacy by following the guide.