Playing games on Steam is great fun, but sometimes you may not want all your friends to see everything in your library. Whether it’s an embarrassing guilty pleasure game or you just want to keep some titles private, Steam offers several ways to hide games from your friends list. Here’s an in-depth guide on the different methods available and how to use them.
Table of Contents
Make Your Steam Profile Private
The easiest way to hide all your gaming activity from friends is to make your Steam profile fully private. Here’s how:
- Click on your username in the top right of the Steam client
- Select View my profile
- Click Edit profile
- Go to the Privacy settings tab
- Set Game details to Private
This will completely hide your game library, wishlist, play activity, and more from all friends. They won’t be able to see what you’re playing or even that you’re online.
The downside is that this hides your activity from all friends – you can’t pick and choose who sees what. If you just want to hide certain games, keep reading.
Hide Individual Games
You can set specific games in your library to hidden so they don’t show up in your profile. Friends won’t see them in your library or activity feed. Here’s how:
- Right click on the game in your Steam library
- Click Set categories
- Select Hide this game
The game will now be hidden. To access hidden games:
- Go to the View menu
- Click Hidden games
- The game will be listed there
You can unhide games the same way – just repeat the steps and choose a different category.
Appear Offline
Another simple way to hide what you’re playing is to appear offline in the Steam friends list. Friends can’t see your activity if you’re offline.
- Click your username in the top right
- Select Offline
You will now show as offline to all friends. They won’t get notifications when you launch games. You can toggle this on and off anytime.
Use Family Sharing
Steam’s Family Sharing feature lets you share libraries across accounts. You can use a secondary account just for certain games you want to hide:
- Create a second Steam account
- Enable family sharing with your main account
- Install hidden games on the second account
- Switch accounts to play them
Friends won’t see the activity on your alternate account. You can seamlessly switch between both to hide specific games.
Block Friends
If just one or two friends are bothering you, you can simply block them. They will no longer see any of your Steam activity.
- Click the arrow next to Friends at the bottom
- Select Players tab
- Right click their name
- Click Block all communication
This will remove them from your friends list and hide all your gaming activity from them.
Use Third Party Tools
There are also third party tools like Depressurizer that offer greater library management options. These let you categorize and filter games exactly how you want.
However, they generally won’t hide games from friends – they’re more for your own library management. Still, they provide more powerful customization if you want to organize your collection into public and private sections.
Which Method Should I Use?
So in summary, here are the key methods to hide games on Steam along with their pros and cons:
- Private Profile – Hides everything but can’t selectively pick games or friends
- Hide Individual Games – Good for selectively hiding specific embarrassing games
- Appear Offline – Super simple but friends might get suspicious if you stay offline for too long
- Family Sharing – Lets you segment libraries across accounts but takes more effort
- Block Friends – Easy way to isolate certain friends but doesn’t hide you from everyone
Take your pick from the options above depending on exactly what and who you’re trying to hide games from on Steam! Mix and match them to get the privacy settings you want.
And don’t worry what people think about the games you play – your gaming time is your own. Have fun on Steam any way you like!
