How to Hide Games from Friends on Steam: A Comprehensive Guide
Want to maintain a little privacy on Steam? Maybe you’re exploring a genre you’re not ready to share, or perhaps you just like keeping your gaming life separate from your social circle. Whatever your reason, Steam offers several ways to hide your games from friends. The easiest methods involve adjusting your profile’s privacy settings or individually hiding specific games in your library. Let’s dive into the specifics!
Methods for Hiding Your Steam Games
There are multiple ways to control what your friends can see about your Steam activity. Here’s a breakdown:
1. Setting Your Profile to Private
This is the most comprehensive method to conceal your entire gaming library and activity from your Steam friends. By making your profile private, you prevent friends (and the public) from seeing your owned games, your wishlist, your playtime, and even your achievements.
Here’s how to do it:
- Open the Steam client and click on your profile name in the top menu, then select “View my profile.”
- Click the “Edit Profile” button on the right-hand side.
- Go to the “Privacy Settings” tab.
- Under “My Profile,” set the “Game Details” option to “Private.”
This single step blocks friends from seeing your game list, playtime, achievements, and wishlist. You can also set other elements of your profile to private, such as your friends list or inventory. For maximum privacy, set “My Profile” itself to “Private,” hiding everything except your username and profile picture.
2. Hiding Individual Games
If you don’t want to go completely private, Steam allows you to hide specific games from your library. This is useful if you want to keep most of your gaming activity visible but want to keep a few titles under wraps.
Here’s how to hide an individual game:
- Go to your Steam Library.
- Right-click on the game you want to hide.
- Select “Manage” then “Hide this game.”
Hiding a game removes it from your library view and makes it invisible to your friends. If you want to unhide the game later, navigate to the “View” menu at the top of the Steam client and select “Hidden Games”. From there, you can manage the games that have been hidden.
3. Appear Offline
This option doesn’t directly hide your games, but it does prevent your friends from seeing when you’re currently playing a game. If they can’t see you playing, they won’t know what you’re up to!
Here’s how to appear offline:
- Click “Friends & Chat” in the bottom right corner of the Steam client.
- Click the dropdown menu at the top of the Friends list window (usually displaying “Online”).
- Select “Invisible” to appear offline while still being able to use chat, or select “Offline” to completely disconnect from the Steam community.
Choosing “Invisible” is great if you want to play undisturbed but still want to chat with specific friends. Choosing “Offline” is more suitable if you need to focus entirely on gaming or other tasks.
4. Managing Family Sharing
If you use Steam’s Family Sharing feature, you might want to restrict access to certain games for younger family members. While this isn’t exactly hiding games from friends, it controls who can play what on your shared library.
Here’s how to manage Family View:
- Click on ‘Steam’ in the upper left corner
- Click on ‘Settings’ in the dropdown menu
- Click on ‘Family’ on the left side bar
- Here you can manage your family settings and restricted games.
This prevents specific games from being accessed by specific users who have access to the shared library. It’s a useful tool for content management within your household.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Still have questions about hiding games on Steam? Here are some common queries answered:
1. Can friends on Steam see my hidden games?
No, games you’ve explicitly hidden using the “Manage > Hide this game” option will not be visible to your friends, even if they visit your profile.
2. How do I unhide games on Steam?
To unhide games, click “View” in the Steam menu bar, then “Hidden Games.” You can then manage and remove games from the hidden list.
3. Will making my profile private affect my ability to play multiplayer games?
No, setting your profile to private does not affect your ability to play multiplayer games. You can still join and play online games as usual.
4. Can I hide games from specific friends only?
Unfortunately, Steam doesn’t offer a way to hide games from individual friends. The privacy settings apply to your entire friends list or public viewers.
5. Does hiding a game remove it from my computer?
No, hiding a game simply makes it invisible in your library. The game files remain installed on your computer.
6. If I set my profile to private, can my friends still see my achievements?
No, if you set “Game Details” to “Private” in your privacy settings, your friends cannot see your achievements.
7. What happens if I appear offline while playing a game?
If you appear offline, your friends will not see that you are currently playing a game. However, they might see your “last online” status, giving them a clue about when you were last active.
8. Does Discord show what game I’m playing even if I’m appearing offline on Steam?
Yes, Discord can show what game you’re playing regardless of your Steam status, unless you configure your Discord privacy settings separately. In Discord, navigate to Settings > Activity Privacy and disable “Display current activity as a status message.”
9. Is Family Sharing on Steam legal?
Yes, Family Sharing is a legitimate feature of Steam, allowing you to share your game library with authorized accounts on up to 10 devices.
10. How do I make my Discord account private?
Open Discord, go to your settings by tapping on the logo in the bottom right-hand corner. Then, tap Privacy and Safety, here you can choose whatever option you’d like to enable or disable by swiping the toggle feature. You can choose to either allow messages from everyone, certain friends or no one.
11. Does closing Discord show you as offline PC?
Yes, if you close the Discord app or log out of your account, you will appear offline to other users. Generally “closing” Discord, meaning you terminate the process, on your computer will display you as offline.
12. Can you tell if someone is lurking on Discord?
While it is not possible to tell if someone is specifically “lurking” on Discord, per se, there are a few ways to determine if a user is active or currently online in invisible mode on Discord.
13. Can I change game settings in Steam?
Yes, game launch options can be used to change game settings before running the game. Launch options allow the user to supersede internal settings of the game. This is an effective means to recover from incompatible video settings as well as troubleshooting a wide range of issues.
14. How do I manage content on Steam?
Open the Steam Client. Navigate to the Library using the top menu. Locate your game from the Library side panel. Right-click on a game and go to Properties > DLC. From here, you can place/remove the tick in the Install column to add/remove an add-on.
15. How can educators leverage games in learning?
Educators can leverage games to promote skills such as problem-solving, collaboration, and critical thinking. By using games that align with the curriculum, educators can create an engaging and effective learning environment. The Games Learning Society advocates for the use of games in education to foster deeper learning and engagement: https://www.gameslearningsociety.org/. GamesLearningSociety.org is a fantastic resource for educators and researchers.
Controlling your Steam privacy is simple. With these tips, you can easily manage what your friends see and enjoy your games your way!