How to appear offline in Fortnite

Fortnite is unquestionably one of the most popular battle royale games where you can team up with friends to play various game modes. While having a squadmate to queue with is ideal, there are times when players want to go at it solo and play offline.

There’s a way you can switch this off so you can choose to play by yourself, rather than jumping in with your friends. It’s a good way to spend some time going through matches by yourself, or when you want to try out something new. In addition to Online Status, players can change the Party Privacy, Mutual Friends, Passes, Matchmaking Region, and other options from the game menu. Repeatedly declining party invitations can seem rude, so we recommend changing your Online Status. Here’s what you need to know about how to appear offline while playing Fortnite.

Step-by-step guide on how change online status to offline in Fortnite

To change your status to offline in Fortnite, there are a few things you have to do first to begin the process. Thankfully, it’s pretty quick. Make sure you’re not playing or queueing for a Fortnite match when you’re doing this. If you have friends who want to play, but they appear offline, it never hurts to see if the servers are down, too. Here’s what you need to do to appear offline:

• Open Fortnite, and click on the three horizontal lines on the top left-hand corner
• Click on your profile picture that appears on the top left-hand side of this menu
• The Online Status option will now be visible, and you can toggle it to Away
• Click on Party Privacy and change it to Private

When you go private, anyone who looks at your profile should see that you’re offline. They won’t be able to join you if you’re waiting in a lobby, either. You can do this to get a few warm-up matches in before jumping into games with your friends or other players in your community.

How to change your status to offline in Epic Games Launcher

You can also toggle your offline status from the Epic Games Launcher. This will make you appear offline in Fortnite and other games that use the Epic Games Launcher. It’s a more advanced way to do it if other players are friends with you through the launcher, but they might not have Fortnite installed on their machine.

Similar to turning yourself offline, there are a few steps you have to follow to complete this process. We recommend closing out of Fortnite before walking through these steps to ensure no one can see you’re playing the game before you turn it off. Plus, it might not go through if you’re playing the game.

• Open Epic Games Launcher, and click on your profile picture in the top right-hand corner
• Scroll down to Settings
• Under Preferences, you will find the Enable Offline Mode Browsing option
• Click on the checkbox to activate the offline status in Epic Games Launcher

If you are playing Fortnite from an Xbox console, there’s a simple way to appear offline quickly. You can change the Online Status in Fortnite from Xbox Live. If you’re playing from your console, no one who may want to join you can see what you’re playing, and it ensures others won’t send you messages in the middle of a match.

• Open Xbox Live and click on the profile picture in the top left-hand corner
• Scroll down and click on the Appear Offline option

For PlayStation users, the process is similar, and you can toggle the offline option by accessing the menu in Fortnite. 

• Open Fortnite, and press X to open the Menu
• Press the Triangle button to open Settings
• Under Online Status, you will see Online and Away options
• Press X on the Away option
• Select Party Privacy and change it to Private 

To appear Online again, return to Settings and change your status from Away to Online. The process is equally quick to going offline when playing Fortnite, and you’ll want to do this before you start messaging your friends to rally together for a few matches.