How to appear offline on Instagram

For some on social media, you’ll know how to fly under the radar. For this, you’ll need to know how to change your Activity Status and appear offline on Instagram.

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 information to users that 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 all of you’re connected users knowing what you’re up to at all times.

What does appearing offline on Instagram do?

As we mentioned briefly earlier, appearing offline on Instagram does a couple of 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 that nobody will be able to see when you are actively browsing 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 so will also mean that you won’t be able to see anybody else’s Activity Status.

So if you want to know when others are online, you’ll have to continue to let them know that you are online as well.

Why would you want to appear offline on Instagram?

There are several reasons why you might want to appear offline on Instagram. Maybe you’ve got that annoying aunt that won’t leave you alone whenever they find out that you’re online.

Or maybe there’s someone you’ve connected with in the past that takes advantage of your Activity Status. Although, it might be a better idea to go ahead and block that person completely.

Whatever your reason for wanting to appear offline on Instagram, the feature can be an incredibly useful tool.

And you can always go back and toggle the feature back on if you want to show your friends when you are online again.

Here’s how to toggle Activity Status on Instagram mobile

Since Instagram is primarily used on mobile devices, this will likely be the most useful section for most people.

First up, we’re going to take a 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 you have. But the processes are the same either way.

After toggling off this setting, you will begin to appear offline on Instagram. And whenever you want to appear online again, just repeat the same steps and toggle Activity Status back on.

Here’s how to toggle Activity Status on Instagram for desktop

While Meta was originally focused on developing Instagram as a mobile app, the company has added features to the desktop Instagram website to make it work a little more like the mobile app.

And fortunately, you can at least use the website to toggle your Activity Status.

1. Click your profile picture in the top right corner

2. Select Settings

3. Click Privacy and security

4. 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, you won’t be displaying your online status or history to everyone.

Just remember, you also won’t be able to see other users’ Activity Status if you’ve toggled your own option off.

And if you ever change your mind, you can follow the same steps to go back and turn your Activity Status back on again.

Use Instagram’s Activity Status to your advantage

Tons of people like to browse Instagram to keep up with their friends or their favorite creators. But you don’t have to let everyone know that you’re online when you’re browsing the platform.

Instagram’s Activity Status feature lets you choose when you want people to see that you’re online.

Of course, it also means that you won’t be able to see other users’ Activity Status with yours turned off. But that’s a small price to pay for a little extra privacy on the platform.

You can change your Activity Status on Instagram regularly. So get familiar with this process and start browsing Instagram on or offline. The choice is always yours.

Are you keeping this feature turned on? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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