How to Turn Off Active Status on Facebook Messenger

Stop people from messaging you by blocking them from chat

Updated on September 11, 2020

You can hide your Facebook profile from friends on Facebook Messenger. One way to hide from some or all of your friends is by turning off Active Status. There are two ways you can disable Facebook Messenger. You can do so globally, so that you can't message with anyone, or you can turn it off for specific friends.

How to Turn Off Facebook Messenger

You can make Messenger accessible to only specific Facebook friends while appearing offline to everyone else, or you can hide from all your Facebook friends and contacts.

When you turn off Active Status, you can receive messages, but you won't be notified about messages. Anything you receive while Messenger is off shows up in your inbox when you turn on Active Status.

Follow these steps for either outcome:

Access your Facebook profile, open Messenger, and select Options, indicated by three horizontal dots.
Select Turn Off Active Status.
There are now three options to choose from, depending on who you want to block or hide in Facebook Messenger:
- Select Turn off active status for all contacts to disable messaging for all your Facebook friends and contacts.
- Select Turn off active status for all contacts except if you want to hide from Facebook Messenger for most of your contacts, but you want a select few to be able to message you.
- Select Turn off active status for only some contacts if there are a few Facebook friends for whom you would like to disable chat.
If you selected either the second or third options, enter the names of the friends you want to hide from Messenger, then select them as they're suggested to you.
When you're finished choosing which friends should be blocked, select Okay.

To make yourself visible once again, follow the first two steps but select Turn On Active Status from the Messenger Options menu.