Discord is a social platform for gamers so wanting to be invisible on Discord seems like a contradiction. However, if you’re preparing for a raid, taking care of support tasks for your guild or concentrating on crafting or leveling, there may be times when you want a little peace and quiet without logging out of your chat server.
That is when appearing as invisible comes in.
Sure it only takes a second to log out of Discord but then you could miss important messages, calls for help or some interesting chat. I have been crafting missiles in Eve while mining for ore as invisible and then heard a cry for help from a guildmate who was being ganked. It was a only a few minutes before I was in my T2 cruiser flying to his aid. I and a couple other guidmates were able to save him and his Exhumer from an ignominious death.
Had I not been logged into Discord at the time, I would never have heard his cry for help. Being logged as invisible had allowed me to perform boring tasks without being disturbed while still being ‘on call’ if someone needed help.
That is just one reason in favor of being invisible on Discord rather than logged out.
Discord status
There are four online status for users of channels, Online, Idle, Do Not Disturb and Invisible. Online speaks for itself. You’re online, interacting and playing a part. Idle triggers when you are AFK for a given time which is set by your server admin.
DnD shows you are a red circle and is a manual settings meaning you’re doing something too important to be bothered by the inane witterings of clanmates. Invisible is another triggered condition that hides you from the channel users view but leaves you logged in.
The first two status are server controlled although you can manually set Idle if you wanted. I have no idea why you would want to though. Do Not Disturb and Invisible are both triggered conditions.
To manually set yourself to invisible in Discord, just right click your avatar within the program and select Invisible from the popup box. It will remain active until you log out of Discord or manually set your status to something else.
Can you tell if someone is invisible in Discord?
If you’re a server admin or even another user, can you tell if you have invisible users or if a particular user is invisible? The answer to both questions is no. An invisible user is exactly that for everyone. Even the server admin cannot tell if there are invisible users on the server at any given time.
This does present a bit of a problem if you run a Discord server and want to know peak time and low time user numbers or when you are planning an event or raid. So far, most admins work around it and will shout out or DM. Messages, both verbal and Direct Messages will both be delivered to invisible users.
Can you hide what game you are playing?
Some of us are more bothered by privacy than others. I am of the opinion that if you want the benefits of being sociable, you need to surrender a little bit of that privacy temporarily. However, a couple of guys I know have guilty secret games that they like to play occasionally but don’t want clanmates to know about.
Discord has a setting called ‘Display currently running game as a status message’. It doesn’t pick up every game you play but can detect a lot of games whether they use Discord or not. Sometimes, it may be useful to turn this setting off to preserve some dignity. Here’ how.
- Select the small cog Settings icon in the bottom left of your Discord screen.
- Select Games from the left menu.
- Toggle off ‘Display currently running game as a status message’.
This may be toggled off anyway as not all servers or devices are configured to use this or are able to use it. Either way, if you want a little extra privacy, that’s how to get it.
Managing Friend Sync
Finally, if you use Discord’s Friend Sync feature, you will be notified when friends use Steam, Skype or Battle. net. If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off. The feature is quite secure and uses decent security to protect your data but is a theoretical weakness in an otherwise secure system.
To turn off Friend Sync.
- Log into Discord and select User Settings.
- Select Connections.
- Select Disconnect Sync to turn it off.
- Select Display Username and toggle it to off.
There are no security implications for using sync but if you want to maximize privacy, it is one setting you might like to change.
