Block my contacts seeing that I am online

[apcsilver]

How do I Block my contacts seeing that I am online?

[VooDooDoll]

choose the invisible status.

[MoonBabe]

Can you clarify this question for me? I understand that you can choose the 'invisible' mode so that your contacts can't see when you're online, but, if you want to 'talk' to one of them, don't you have to then change your status to 'online' in order to send instant messages to them? This was my understanding anyway but now I'm not sure.  I'd be very grateful for some clarification on this as I find various options with skype a bit confusing at times.

[Elaine Moderator]

No worries; I have been an avid Skyper for several years, and I, too, forget fine points!

I just tested this with one of my colleagues: when your status is set to Invisible, you are still on-line.  You just don't show as others to be on-line -- they see your status as off-line.  Yes, you can do everything you can do when your status is on-line: make and receive calls; IM; and anything else.   Remember, your status just shows as offline to others.

[MoonBabe]

Thanks so much for your quick response.  I was always under the impression that if you wanted to communicate with one of your contacts, then you had to change your status to 'online' so they could see you were online. Is this not the case then? For instance, if one of my contacts was showing as online and I wanted to send an IM to them, could I still do so, even if I appeared as 'offline' to everyone by selecting my status as 'invisible'?

Could you help me with something else too? It's in regard to blocking contacts. I was of the understanding that if I wanted to speak to a contact but didn't want another contact to see me as 'online' during that time, then I would have to temporarily 'block' that contact so they couldn't see me & they also wouldn't know when I was last online. This is where using the 'invisible' option gets confusing for me because when I've read other posts about this, you're told that you can't choose to make yourself 'visible' to certain contacts but 'invisible' to others and that if you want to communicate with one contact and 'hide' your status from another, then you have to temporarily block them? I do find it all rather confusing as to what is correct and what is not!

In regard to when you temporarily block a contact, the other question I have is, does your number of contacts on your visible profile (to contacts only & not everyone) go up or down as you do this? The reason I ask this is because I've noticed that on one of my contacts profiles, it was 4 then went up to 5, then back to 4, then down to 3, then back to four and now it's 5 again, all within a short period of time and this contact doesn't use skype that regularly. I just wondered that if I, or one of my contacts, temporarily block a contact, if this would temporarily change the number of contacts on my or their visible profile (visible to contacts only) and does that number go up or down slightly, accordingly?

I apologise for asking all these questions because you probably just think I'm stupid but I just find these things on skype confusing as I don't think they're made very clear.

I'd appreciate it greatly if you could answer these questions above and clarify all these issues for me because I'd really like to know exactly, what using these options mean.

Thanks again and kind regards.

[Elaine Moderator]

Thanks so much for your quick response.

You are welcome!

 I was always under the impression that if you wanted to communicate with one of your contacts, then you had to change your status to 'online' so they could see you were online. Is this not the case then? For instance, if one of my contacts was showing as online and I wanted to send an IM to them, could I still do so, even if I appeared as 'offline' to everyone by selecting my status as 'invisible'?

Yes, you stated this correctly; you can still communicate: the person you call or instant message chat with may stimply be surprised or maybe unnerved to "see" you, as to them, you appear off-line.

Could you help me with something else too? It's in regard to blocking contacts. I was of the understanding that if I wanted to speak to a contact but didn't want another contact to see me as 'online' during that time, then I would have to temporarily 'block' that contact so they couldn't see me & they also wouldn't know when I was last online.

Your description is how I understand this works. 

 This is where using the 'invisible' option gets confusing for me because when I've read other posts about this, you're told that you can't choose to make yourself 'visible' to certain contacts but 'invisible' to others and that if you want to communicate with one contact and 'hide' your status from another, then you have to temporarily block them? I do find it all rather confusing as to what is correct and what is not!

 If you set your status to "invisible," you appear as off-line to all of your Contacts.

In regard to when you temporarily block a contact, the other question I have is, does your number of contacts on your visible profile (to contacts only & not everyone) go up or down as you do this? The reason I ask this is because I've noticed that on one of my contacts profiles, it was 4 then went up to 5, then back to 4, then down to 3, then back to four and now it's 5 again, all within a short period of time and this contact doesn't use skype that regularly. I just wondered that if I, or one of my contacts, temporarily block a contact, if this would temporarily change the number of contacts on my or their visible profile (visible to contacts only) and does that number go up or down slightly, accordingly?

I experimented with this by blocking a few of my contacts; I did not see any difference in the total contacts number displayed in my profile.  (I do not display this number, anyway.)  So, I can not explain this; sorry!

[MoonBabe]

Hello again! 

I just want to thank you for taking the time to answer and explain things more fully to me. It has helped a lot. I think I have a better understanding of how these options now work.

Thank you very much again.

Kind Regards.

[Elaine Moderator]

Dear MoonBabe,

 Mark Twain once said, "I could live two months on a good compliment."

  Thank you; so can I!

Cheers,

elainem77

[MoonBabe]

Hi elainem77,

You're very welcome! Thanks again!

moonbabe

[MoonBabe]

Your contacts won't know you're online if you choose the invisible status but if you don't want them to know when you were last online at all, I am of the understanding that you have to temporarily block them.  This is the information that is given if you place your cursor over a contacts name in your contacts list, where it will say 'Last seen' on: whatever date & time they were last online.  If you are not blocked by them, you will see whenever they were last active on Skype but if you are blocked, you will only see when they were last online with you.  Of course, that time might be the last time they were online but if you don't want a contact to know when you have been online since talking to them, you need to temporarily block them until you want to talk to them again.