Invisible Mode in Gmail Chat
Gmail, Talk February 23rd, 2008 - By Haochi
Google added a new feature to Gmail Chats recently that allows users to change their presence status to “invisible”. When you set your presence status to Invisible, you will be appear as Offline to your contacts but you will still be able to chat with the people you want to chat with.
(At least that’s how it should work, although it never seem to work for me. Whenever I set my status to Invisible, my contacts will still be able to see me and be like, “No, you are ONLINE!”)
If you are using Gmail Chat and a desktop IM client at the same time, you will probably see a warning message when switching to Invisible: “Oops! You are not invisible because you’re also using desktop software that doesn’t support invisibility, such as Google Talk.”
I remember I poked fun at Harry Potter’s invisible cloak last week, can’t remember what it was though. Lulz.
[photo by Phoebe Epstein, used under a CC-license; via Google Blogoscoped forum]
February 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
This has been in GTalk for a couple years now (when I first started using it). From what I’ve seen, if you are “invisible”, you actually show as “Away” (or timed-out), in the Google system anyway. I use Pidgin now, and “Invisible” on Yahoo! shows up as “offline”, but “Away” in Google chat, so what shows in other places is sort up to the system I guess.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Invisible mode is very important for me.Thanks for informations about all Google Productions.I’m looking everyday to your blog.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
See my thoughts on why invisibility violates the social (networking) contract: http://tropophilia.com/2008/02/25/invisibility-a-violation-of-the-social-networking-contract/
February 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
the invisible option is not there in my status list. any idea why?
February 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
@soumyasree: Are you using the new version of Gmail?
March 12th, 2008 at 7:12 am
@soumyasree
same thing was happening with me.
its little bit tricky….
“Write your status as a “Invisible”, then just make it “Available” or “Busy” (i mean any other). then click on drop down arrow (for selecting status). now you might see the option for “Invisible” also..
March 13th, 2008 at 8:49 am
at my gmail there is no invisible . why ? and at my old version , i cant chat (You have been signed out of Gmail. You must sign back in to reenable chat.). that occour . please expalin me .. thanks