Gchat Invisibility Loophole?

May 14, 2011 12:30 PM

Is there way to unhide yourself from certain people on gchat and hide from everybody else?

My partner and I are always on gchat with many contacts and sometimes just need to chat one on one without distraction. Are there any add-ons of tweaks I can do to allow us to see each other online and nobody else? We're not interested in creating other accounts or other chat applications, not worth the clutter.

posted by JJkiss to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

As far as I know, no. My boyfriend and I just send a test chat to ping each other. If the other one is online, the chat goes through; if not, it doesn't and gmail sends a chat log email instead.
posted by phunniemee at 12:38 PM on May 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

Just stay as invisible all the time, and then you can just chat with each other. Just make sure your partner and you both have each other set to always show in your chat contacts, hover over the contact, then hit the chat button. It's how my sister stays on hers, and she only talks with me and her husband.
posted by deezil at 12:46 PM on May 14, 2011

I find that if you're on the red setting (busy?) people tend to leave you alone, despite you being 'visible'.
posted by threeants at 1:09 PM on May 14, 2011

Do you ever want other people to be able to see if you're online?
If not, under Chat settings, there's
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Auto-add suggested contacts:

( )Automatically allow people I communicate with often to chat with me and see when I'm online. Learn more
( )Only allow people that I've explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I'm online.
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and the second one would do what you want, if you remove everyone else from your lists.
posted by needs more cowbell at 2:19 PM on May 14, 2011