How to appear offline in Fortnite

Online competitive gaming can be tiresome, and Fortnite’s case is no different. At times, you may just want to quickly play a match or two before getting off. On other days, you may only want to explore the Item Shop and not actually play a match. In such instances, it’s reasonable to want to hide your active status in the game and avoid getting any match invites.

While Fortnite may not let you appear offline in the traditional sense, there are certain settings you can change to get the closest possible scenario. Making such tweaks can give the impression that you are away from your console or PC, even though Fortnite is running on the system. The following guide tells you how to go about doing just that.

Tips to appear offline in Fortnite

Toggle in-game online status

Fortnite doesn’t have an offline status marker, but it does have something close called the “Away” status option. Selecting it changes the green dot next to your profile icon to a crescent moon icon, signaling that you are not actively playing Fortnite. To change your in-game status, follow these steps:

Launch Fortnite and click on the profile icon in the top-right corner of your screen.
Navigate to the profile icon tab.
Select “Away” to change status.

Change party joinability settings

There can be times when you want to play exclusively with a certain group of Fortnite friends. On those days, it can be annoying and awkward if someone else on your friends list joins the private lobby, aka party. To avoid such a situation, you can change the party settings in a way that no one else can join it without your permission. By following the steps below, you can easily apply this setting:

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Launch Fortnite and click on the profile icon in the top-right corner of your screen
Navigate to the profile icon tab
Select “Private Joinability” and set the “Invite only” option.

Toggle the console’s online status

Similar to Fortnite, Epic Games Store also doesn’t offer a traditional offline status marker for the game’s players on PC. However, if you are on PlayStation, Xbox or Switch, there is indeed a way to set yourself as offline.

On PS5:

Navigate to your profile icon (next to the gear icon) in the top-right corner of the screen and select it
Then, select “Online Status” and pick “Appear Offline.”

On Xbox Series X|S:

On the home screen, press the Xbox button.
In the sidebar menu, navigate to your profile icon tab.
Select the button containing your username.
From the menu that appears, move to the drop-down menu at the bottom and select “Appear offline.”

On Switch 2 or Switch:

Select the profile icon in the top-left corner of the screen.
Navigate to the “User Settings” section.
Scroll down and select “Friends Settings.”
Change the “Online-Status Display” to “No One.” This option may appear as “Display online status to” for users on the original Switch.

All these setting tweaks together should be a good workaround for mimicking an offline status in Fortnite. Even though it doesn’t guarantee you’re invisible from other friends online in the game, it does ensure you can still have a private gaming session to an extent.

Although a proper offline option has been requested by many Fortnite players for a long time, Epic Games hasn’t shown enough interest to implement one yet. So, my advice would be to not hold your breath for such an option anytime soon. For now, it’s best to go with the aforementioned setting changes as they mostly fulfill the purpose of the offline status marker.

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