Did you know you can appear offline on Instagram by changing your Activity Status? Well, yes, you can.
This feature lets you fly under the radar and avoid unwanted interactions with other users.
The platform includes an Activity Status feature that tracks how long it’s been since you were online and lets your friends know when you’re active on the platform.
As you can imagine, that has the potential to get a little invasive. Fortunately, Instagram only shows this to users you follow or message privately.
But it’s still nice to be able to hide that Activity Status, so you don’t have to worry about everyone knowing what you’re up to at all times.
In this article, we are going to show you how to appear offline on Instagram, but first, let’s get to know what this feature does.
What Does Appearing Offline on Instagram Do?
As we mentioned briefly, appearing offline on Instagram does several different things. And it all revolves around the Activity Status.
First, turning off your Activity Status to appear offline on Instagram will hide your status from other users. That means nobody can see when you actively browse images and videos on the platform.
Additionally, toggling your Activity Status off will also hide the counter that tells people how long it has been since you were last offline.
So, you can essentially hide every aspect of Instagram’s Activity Status for your profile.
However, doing it also means you can’t see anybody else’s Activity Status.
So if you want to know when others are online, you’ll have to keep the Activity Status feature on.
How To Go Offline on Instagram’s App
Since Instagram is primarily used on mobile devices, this will likely be the most useful section for most people.
First, we’ll look at how to toggle off your Activity Status on the Instagram mobile app for iOS or Android.
The menus might look a little different, depending on what kind of phone and version of the app you have. But the processes are the same either way.
- Open Instagram and tap your profile picture
- Select the hamburger menu (three-line menu) in the top right
- Select Settings
- Tap Privacy
- Scroll down and click on Activity Status
- Lastly, toggle Activity status off
Here’s How To Toggle Activity Status on Instagram For Desktop
Meta originally focused on developing Instagram as a mobile app.
Thankfully, that’s changed as the company has added features to Instagram’s desktop site to make it work more like an app.
And fortunately, you can also use the website version to toggle off your Activity Status. Here’s how to go about it.
- Click your profile picture in the top right corner
- Select Settings
- Click Privacy and security
- Toggle the Show activity status box off
That’s all there is to that.
Once you toggle the Activity Status box off from that menu, your online status and history are essentially invisible to everyone.
Remember, you also can’t see other users’ Activity Status if you’ve toggled this option off.
Have any thoughts on this? Drop us a comment below in the comments section, or carry the discussion over to our Twitter, Facebook and Telegram.
