Skip to main content

How to appear offline on Xbox Series X

Sometimes, you might want to play your Xbox Series X alone, without anyone inviting you to a party chat or game. Sure, you can tell your friends you aren't available, but there's an easier solution: Appearing offline! Even when playing online or being connected to the internet, Microsoft gives Xbox users the ability to appear offline, and there are a couple of different ways to do so. This makes it so that your gamertag will literally appear as "offline," preventing you from getting an awkward invite from a friend. But how does this feature work? Here's how to appear offline on Xbox Series X.

Related Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

Appear offline to everyone

Appearing offline to all players, including those who aren't on your friends list, is doable in just a few steps.

Step 1: After you've signed into your Xbox account on your system, press the Xbox button to open up the quick menu.

Step 2: Tab over to your profile, as indicated by your gamer picture, and select your profile. It should show your Xbox Live status as well as your gamertag and is the first option under Profile & System.

how to appear offline on an xbox one

Step 3: Click on My Profile.

Step 4: From here, you'll see three options on the right-hand side of the screen -- the first of which is Appear Offline -- with a drop-down arrow next to it. Here, you can select between appearing on and offline, as well as setting your status to Do Not Disturb. Boom! You've just appeared offline. To revert back to normal, follow the same steps and switch it back to Appear Online.

how to appear offline on an xbox one

Customize your online status

The other method is done within the system settings and allows you to customize who can see your online status. This gives you more flexibility and can be useful if you want to control what other players see when looking at your profile.

Step 1: Press the Xbox button once again, and tab all the way to the right to your profile. Then, scroll down to Settings and select it.

Step 2: Under the Account menu, select the Privacy and Online Safety option.

Step 3: Then, select Xbox Privacy at the top. You'll be taken to a menu that has a few checkboxes, with an option to View Details and Customize toward the bottom. Pick that one.

how to appear offline on an xbox one

Step 4: Select Online Status and History, and you'll be able to alter settings for whether other players can see if you're online, what other players can see on your profile, and your game/app history. All can be blocked, set to just friends, or set to everyone.

Note that there are numerous privacy options that can be altered on the previous page by visiting the Profile menu.

how to appear offline on an xbox one

And with that, you'll be much better equipped to customize your profile settings on Xbox Series X. Now, you'll be able to play games without getting invites from other players (hopefully).

Editors' Recommendations

The best PS5 games for 2023
Leon parries a chainsaw villager in Resident Evil 4.

The PlayStation 4's success was largely due to its stellar game library, which featured some of the best titles of the past generation. Now, the PlayStation 5 is looking to repeat that success, though it's going to have to overcome some initial bumps in the road to reach that point.

Sony suffered some road bumps bringing major titles to market over the course of 2022 but new hit games are finally punching through. God of War Ragnarok, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, and Overwatch 2 are the most recent top titles to hit PS5, but there are plenty of other killer games for every kind of gamer out on the platform. As always, there's a running list of great upcoming PS5 games. Currently, there's no shortage of incredible experiences to be had right now on PS5.

Read more
Diablo 4 beta rewards: how to earn all titles and cosmetics
Diablo 4 promotional image of Lillith

Diablo 4's beta is an opportunity for fans of the loot-heavy role-playing game to sink some time into its dark and demonic world before the game launches on June 6. Though you can invest a good bit of time into seeing everything Blizzard has included in the beta, you won't be able to carry the progress you make into the full game, meaning everything you do is just for testing purposes – well, almost everything. By completing a few milestones during the beta, you can earn some neat rewards to use in the full release later this year. Here's how to get them all.
All Diablo 4 beta rewards and how to get them

There are three rewards you can obtain during Diablo 4's beta, including two titles and a unique (and extremely cute) cosmetic – all of which assumedly won't ever be earnable by any other means in the retail game. In other words, if you want anything Blizzard is offering during the beta period, you'll need to devote the time to get them now or risk never having another opportunity.

Read more
Here’s how to get Redfall Bite Back Edition for free from Nvidia
A character levitates a book in Redfall.

As part of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Nvidia is launching a new GPU bundle. Anyone making a new purchase of the RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and RTX 4070 Ti desktop graphics cards, as well as RTX 40-series Nvidia desktops and laptops, will receive a copy of the Redfall Bite Back Edition when it releases on May 2, 2023, for free.

That's not just the base game, which normally retails for $70. It's a deluxe version that includes the game, the Hero Pass with two future characters, and several cosmetics. Nvidia also announced that Redfall will support Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), including Frame Generation on RTX 40-series graphics cards.

Read more