Reddit is no stranger to promoting one of the ‘Thanks, I hate this’ changes on its platform, but the latest one seems a bit overkill. Of course I’m talking about new online presence indicators Reddit introduced A few days ago. If you’re not a fan of the feature, here’s all you need to do to hide your online status on Reddit.
Hide Online Status on Reddit
We’ve added separate instructions for hiding online status across different platforms of Reddit, including the new website, old Reddit, and mobile. You can use the table of contents below to jump to the section you need.
What are Online Presence Indicators on Reddit?
Before I summarize the steps to disable online status on Reddit, I’ll explain what the new feature is all about so everyone is on the same page. On March 3, Reddit announced the introduction of online presence indicators. With this featureA green dot indicator appears when you’re online on Reddit. Also, these Indicators will appear next to your post and comments.
Reddit is trying to justify the feature addition, saying it’s meant to “engage more engagement among our users and encourage more posts and comments across the site.” Sounds harmless, right? Wrong! The first annoying aspect of this change is that it is disabled and not included. In other words, your online status will be visible by default and you will have to make an effort to disable it.
Another justification is that the online presence indicator would be useful, as “some users may be hesitant to post or comment because they are not sure if they are active users in the community”. If you’re a Reddit user, you’ll already know that you can look up the active members of a subreddit in the top right corner. Also, you can always sort by new to see how active a subdirectory is.
Although the feature does not currently display your personal status indicator to others, the company Plans to expand the feature soon, where 10 percent of Android users can see each other’s online status. In the wake of the controversial announcement, several Redditors and moderators of popular subreddits voiced their opinions on how to complicate their lives with unnecessary interactions.
As a Redditor myself, the last thing I want is for random strangers on the internet to see me online on the platform. Not to mention the unwanted interactions that can occur if I ignore a reply to a thread or DM. If you haven’t guessed yet, I personally hate Reddit’s online presence indicator because it’s an unwanted feature that’s forced on users with an optional override mechanism to avoid any potential backlash.
Oh, and another aspect worth mentioning is how feature descriptions are worded. When you’re online, it appears ‘online’ as you’d expect. However, as soon as you turn the feature off, it seems to ‘hide’ instead of a simple ‘offline’. I’m not sure how the quest for basic privacy is ‘hidden’ as Reddit claims. With all that said, here’s how you can disable the feature.
Disable Online Status in Reddit Desktop (New Website)
1. Open Reddit’s desktop website and click on your avatar in the upper right corner. You will now see a newly added ‘Status’ section in the drop-down menu.
2nd. Click the ‘online’ toggle and your online status will change from online to ‘hiding’.. Flip the switch and peace is restored.
Disable Online Status on Legacy Reddit Desktop
I know there are people who still keep the old Reddit layout after the infamous Reddit redesign. If you’re like that, you can disable the new status indicators like this:
1. Open old Reddit (old.reddit.com) and click on ‘preferences’ from the top right corner of the page.
2nd. Scroll down until you reach the ‘Privacy options’ section. Here you will see a new checkbox titled ‘Allow other users to see my online status’.
3. Uncheck this option and click the ‘save options’ button to save changes
Disable Online Status on Reddit Mobile
1. Open the Reddit app and tap your avatar in the top left corner to expand the side menu. You will now see a status indicator that says ‘Online’.
2nd. Tap the online indicator and it will turn to ‘Hide’. Now you can go back to the hidden Reddit and pretend the feature never existed.
Disable Online Status Indicators on Reddit in Easy Steps
This is how you can hide your online status on Reddit. If you found this helpful, check out our article on disabling the annoying ‘open in app’ popup when browsing Reddit from a web browser on your phone. If you want to leave the platform completely, you can also review our article on sites like Reddit.
