Appear offline on Facebook Messenger: iPhone, Android

Your online status allows people to know if you are available to chat at that moment or not. Find out how to appear offline!

How to change your status on Facebook Messenger?

This setting is not well publicized in the app and may have gone unnoticed by many users. Nonetheless, it still exists as an option. 

For iPhone

To appear offline using an iPhone, open the Facebook Messenger for iPhone app and select your profile icon (usually a round circle containing your profile picture). Click on the Active Status tab.

Toggle the switch to Off so that it no longer shows when you are active.

Now that you have successfully disabled Facebook Chat on your iPhone, you will no longer appear in your friends' Active tabs and will also no longer be able to see when your friends are active. 

For Android

To appear offline using Android, open the Facebook Messenger for Android app, then click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the screen. Next, go to Active Status.

There, you will see the Show when you're active option. To appear offline, you need to deactivate this setting.

To confirm your changes, select Turn off in the dialog box that appears.

Note: After deactivating your online status, you won't be able to see when your contacts are active or have been recently active on Facebook Messenger.