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I'm 'away' for a week and would like some friends not to know I'm playing games. What does blocking a friend actually do?

I'm just looking for it to show me as offline and not show what game I'm playing or if I'm online or not.

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I think you could can just put your friends list in off-line mode. – MBraedley Mar 10 at 21:36
I don't want to do that as I still have some friends I wanna play with – Jamie H Mar 10 at 21:38
I thought a similar question had already been asked, but I can't find it now... – Kareen Mar 10 at 22:26

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

To specifically answer your question at hand, blocking someone will make it so you appear offline to them. No notifications are sent regarding your status or game-playing. They WILL still be on your friends list (and you'll be on their list), so you have easy access to unblock them at any time. Blocked players who are unfriended are still blocked, and they cannot send you another friend request.

I have personally used 'blocking' to temporarily set myself as offline to a specific individual or small group of people while being online to everyone else. I have also personally verified this through my wife's steam account too.

Just keep in mind your steamcommunity profile is public, so if anyone happens to visit your browser profile (e.g. steamcommunity.com/id/yourprofileid) while playing a game , it will say you're in-game. I don't think that will really be a problem, as I'm assuming there's not really a reason for the people you're blocking to visit your browser profile. Setting your status to 'Appear Offline' DOES make you offline across the board, including steamcommunity.com.

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Thank you very much. Didn't seem to work though as I was questioned as to why "I was playing random games all night". Just said my brother was playing on my account :P – Jamie H Mar 12 at 19:50
up vote 0 down vote

I tested this a few months ago and unless it has been patched what you have written is incorrect.

I blocked my friend whilst on skype with him. He could see I was online and he could open up the instant message box and appear to send me messages but I didn't get them and he got no indication they were not test.

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"I blocked my friend whilst on skype with him." Wait, what? – The Annoying Pyro May 22 at 11:13
@TheAnnoyingPyro He means he tried blocking him through Steam while in a Skype conversation so that he could ask his friend what was happening on his end. – GnomeSlice May 22 at 12:50
@GnomeSlice: Ah, OK. – The Annoying Pyro May 22 at 12:52

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