Privacy on Steam often raises questions about library visibility, especially when you want certain games hidden from friends. This guide explains what Steam exposes by default, how friend lists, activity feeds, and profiles interact with game visibility, and the practical limits of hiding games. You will find clear policies, step-by-step settings to check, and realistic expectations about privacy on Steam. Use this to manage your visible activity and keep specific games private without unintended sharing.
How Steam Displays Your Games to Friends
Steam’s default behavior is to make your played games and playtime visible to friends unless you adjust specific privacy settings. The level of detail shown to each friend depends on two layers: your overall profile privacy and individual game privacy settings for each title. Understanding both layers helps you control what appears in friends’ lists, activity feeds, and profile pages.
Profile Privacy Levels
Your profile privacy broadly determines how much others can see. Options typically include:
- Public: friends and non-friends can view your profile, games, and hours.
- Friends Only: only Steam friends see your profile, games, and hours.
- Private: only you see your profile, games, and hours, with limited public stats.
Adjusting profile privacy influences whether friends can see your entire library at a glance, but further per-game settings also matter for fine-grained control.
Per-Game Privacy Settings
For each game in your library, Steam offers a visibility toggle that can be set to Public or Hidden from specific people. This setting only affects that game’s visibility in your friends list and activity feed; it does not hide ownership or basic profile information controlled by your profile privacy. Understanding the difference between profile privacy and per-game privacy helps avoid confusion when a game still appears despite being marked hidden.
Step-by-Step: Hide Games from Specific Friends
To hide individual games from friends on Steam, follow these steps in the Steam client or web interface.
In the Steam Client
- Open your Library and hover over the game you want to hide.
- Right-click the game and select Properties.
- Go to the Community tab.
- Under Privacy Settings, choose Hidden from specific friends or Hidden from everyone.
- Save changes and repeat for additional games.
On the Steam Website
- Visit your Library in a browser while logged in.
- Hover over the game and click the cog icon or three-dot menu.
- Select Manage Game and find Privacy.
- Set visibility to Hidden from specific friends or Hidden from everyone.
- Confirm changes for each title you want to hide.