How to Detect Who Is Appearing Offline

All online instant messaging programs allow a person to set their status to "Appear Offline." Some call this feature "Hiding." This allows a person to still be logged in to their instant messenger program, but their status does not appear as "Online" on anyone's Buddy List. If you want to detect who may or may not be appearing offline in an instant messaging program, there is a simple trick that will allow you to do this quickly.

Instructions

1. Open the instant messaging client that you use on your computer.

2. Click "New Message."

3. Type the screen name of the person who you suspect is appearing offline into the "New Message" window, and then type that person a quick message.

4. Hit "Send." If the person truly is signed off, you will get a message saying that the message could not be delivered for this reason. If a person is hiding and is simply appearing to be offline, the message will go through without any problems.

Resources

• Yahoo!: Messenger
• AOL: AOL Instant Messenger