How To Be Invisible in Discord

Discord is a social platform for gamers so wanting to be invisible on Discord seems like a contradiction. However, if you’re preparing for a raid, taking care of support tasks for your guild, or concentrating on crafting or leveling, there may be times when you want a little peace and quiet without logging out of your chat server. That is when appearing as invisible comes in.

Why Set Status to ‘Invisible’

Sure it only takes a second to log out of Discord but then you could miss important messages, calls for help, or some interesting chat. If you’d like to stay logged in without notifying everyone you’re in DnD, you can use the ‘Invisible’ option instead.

If you’re familiar with Discord you may understand that the colored dots next to an Avatar indicate the users’ activity. Green for Online, Yellow for Idle, Red for Do not Disturb, and the Grey symbol means you’re not online. If you’re using the Invisible status for a little privacy, you will appear Offline.

A prominent feature in Discord, the Invisible setting will allow you to play your games or perform various tasks undisturbed while staying in the loop with conversations and updates.

Discord status

There are four online statuses for users of channels: Online, Idle, Do Not Disturb, and Invisible. When you’re status says ‘Online’ other users know you’re open to communications. You’re online, interacting, and playing a part. ‘Idle’ triggers when you are AFK (away from keyboard) for a given time which is set by your server admin.

DnD (Do Not Disturb) shows a red circle when users attempt to initiate a conversation with you. DnD is a manual setting which means you’re online but not ready to chat. Invisible is another status that hides you from the channel users’ view but leaves you logged in.

The first two statuses are server-controlled although you can manually set ‘Idle’ if you wanted. ‘Do Not Disturb’ and ‘Invisible‘ are both user-activated functions.

To manually set yourself to invisible in Discord, just click your avatar located in the lower left-hand corner of the app and select ‘Invisible’ from the popup box. It will remain active until you log out of Discord or manually set your status to something else.

Once you’ve set yourself to ‘Invisible’ you can continue to play your games and perform necessary tasks undisturbed. As opposed to the other methods available; no one will know you’re status is set to invisible.

Invisible Status Per Server

Aside from the fact that going invisible is undetectable among friends and acquaintances, you do have the option to choose which servers you’d like to be invisible on.

For example; if you are planning a raid or some big gaming event with one group, you can set your status as online for the relevant status and invisible for the others.

This will allow you to communicate openly with those you’re playing with undisturbed by others. Some people have loyal groups of people they play with regularly. Setting your status as ‘Invisible’ serves to spare feelings and deter negative conversations.

Custom Status

Another cool feature for your online status in the Discord app is setting a custom status. This allows you to put whatever you’d like as your visible status message.

Assuming you’re doing something really neat; you can name this status whatever you’d like to let friends and connections know what you’re doing and why you aren’t communicating within chats.

The ‘Clear After’ option allows you to choose the length of time you’d like this message to display. From 4 hours to indefinitely, setting a custom status is yet another way to easily communicate your current activities.

Can you tell if someone is invisible in Discord?

If you’re a server admin or even another user, can you tell if you have invisible users or if a particular user is invisible? The answer to both questions is no. An invisible user is exactly that for everyone. Even the server admin cannot tell if there are invisible users on the server at any given time.

This does present a bit of a problem if you run a Discord server and want to know peak time and low time using numbers or when you are planning an event or raid. So far, most admins work around it and will shout out or DM. Messages, both verbal and Direct Messages will be delivered to invisible users.

Can you hide what game you are playing?

Discord has a setting called ‘Display currently running game as a status message.’ It doesn’t pick up every game you play but can detect a lot of games whether they use Discord or not. Sometimes, it may be useful to turn this setting off. Here’ how:

1. Select the small cog Settings icon in the bottom left of your Discord screen.
   
2. Select Activity Privacy from the left menu.
   
3. Toggle off Display current activity as a status message.
   

This may be toggled off anyway as not all servers or devices are configured to use this or are able to use it. Either way, if you want a little extra privacy, that’s how to get it.

Managing Friend Sync

Finally, if you use Discord’s Friend Sync feature, you will be notified when friends use Steam, Skype, or Battle.net. If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off. The feature is quite secure and uses decent security to protect your data but is a theoretical weakness in an otherwise secure system.

To turn off Friend Sync.

1. Log into Discord and select User Settings.
   
2. Select Connections.
   
3. Select Disconnect to turn it off.
   
4. Select Display Username and toggle it off.

There are no security implications for using sync but if you want to maximize privacy, it is one setting you might like to change.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can other users see when I’m invisible?

There are various dots next to your avatar to let others know whether you’re online or not. When you’ve set the invisible status, people will see the same dot as they would if you were online. A simple grey dot will appear next to your name.

What’s the difference between Do Not Disturb and Invisible?

The Do Not Disturb status lets other users know that you’re online but you prefer not to be bothered. The Invisible status means other users will not see you online at all.