How to hide your active status on Facebook Messenger

If you use Facebook Messenger for any reason, all of your friends who also use the service can tell when you’re active. This makes it kind of hard to ignore people you don’t really want to talk to. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to hide your active status.

Disable Active Status on Mobile

If like most users you use Messenger on mobile, finding where to disable your Active Status can be a little confusing because it’s tucked away a bit.

1. Open the Messenger app and click on your profile picture
2. Click the “Active Status” tab near the top.
3. Tap the toggle to the right to disable your active status. Just note that doing so also disables your ability to see the active status of other people. It seems Facebook wants this to be a two-way street. If you’re cool with that, you’re done here

Disable Active Status on Messenger.com

You can also disable your status on the Messenger web front end.

1. Go to messenger.com and click the three small dots in the upper left corner.
2. Click “Turn Off Active Status” once you’re in the Preferences menu.
3. Select “Turn Off Active Status For All Contacts.”
4.  Click “Okay.”

Again, note that turning off your active status also means you won’t be able to see other people’s active status.