How to Turn off Facebook Chat

Do you need to block Facebook friends from seeing you in Facebook chat so you can get some things done, free from distraction? Blocking friends from Facebook chat requires a few steps, but can be done and works great.

When you turn off chat for Facebook friends, it doesn't mean that nobody can message you. Instead, you'll just not notified of the messages. Anything you receive while chat is off will show up in your inbox when you re-enable chat.

How to Turn off Facebook Chat

There are two different ways you can disable Facebook chat. You can do so globally so that you can't chat with anyone or you can turn off chat for specific friends only so that it still works with other friends.

Disable All of Facebook Chat

Access your Facebook profile.
On the chat menu on the side of the screen, click the small Options button next to the Search text box.
Click Turn Off Chat.
In the window that shows, make sure the option for Turn off chat for all contacts is selected.
Click the Okay button.

With Facebook chat completely disabled, the whole chat area will remain white and no conversations are clickable. Click the link called Turn on chat to re-enable it.

Turn off Facebook Chat for Certain Friends Only

From your Facebook profile, click the small Options button at the bottom of the chat section on the right side of the page.
Click Turn Off Chat.
There are one of two options you can choose here:

Pick Turn off chat for all contacts except... if you want to hide from Facebook chat for most of your contacts but you want a select few to still be able to message.

Choose to Turn off chat for only some contacts... if there are just a few Facebook friends that you want to disable chat for.

Start entering the names of the friends you want to block from chat, and then select them as they're suggested to you.
When you're finished choosing which friends should be blocked, click Okay.

Friends you've chosen to hide from Facebook chat will disappear from the list of available conversations.