Yahoo! Messenger Invisible & Stealth Settings

Version 2.0.0.752 (released 29 October 1999) of Yahoo! Messenger saw the introduction of "invisible" login, with prior versions, up to and including 2.0.0.715 (released 3 May 1999) which was then Yahoo! Pager, our only option was a standard login with the "remember" feature...

Yahoo! Pager login screen v2.0.0.715*	Yahoo! Messenger login screen v2.0.0.752*
*recently installed under Windows XP Pro

...with v2.0.0.752, and above, if we signed onto the Yahoo! network as "invisible" we could be online and see the comings and going of our friends yet we were not visible to them... a very handy feature if you needed time to collect yourself before flicking your status to available and launching into a full blown barrage IM sessions.

Yahoo! Messenger version 6.0.0.1555 Beta (released 26 April 2004) saw the introduction of Stealth settings into our lives, this great little feature expanded on our "invisible" status by giving us the flexibility we had all been pining for. Stealth allowed us to not only sign in as invisible but also select which users or groups, we wished to be invisible or visible to, so you could be visible to all your friends, yet invisible to your work colleagues, family etc or you could be visible to all but a select few (or one) of your friends or vice versa... version 6 gave us freedom and privacy :)

Yahoo! Messenger 6.0.0.1555 Beta Stealth options	Yahoo! Messenger 8.1.0.209 Stealth options
see our original article Yahoo! Messenger v6 Beta Stealth Settings for more details

Applying your Stealth settings is simple enough, you can access them from a variety of ways, mouseover a user ID until their contact card appears then select from the Stealth settings available at the bottom of their card (as shown above) or you can right click on the ID on your friends list, select Stealth Settings and from the flyout menu select the option you want....

you can also manage your groups of contacts the same way...

one of my Yahoo! ID's is bourbon_bee, the first tip you're going to get is to add yourself to your friends list, it lets you see for yourself just how "visible" you are and it's dang handy if you want to quickly check your status and / or see how others see you (like when you're trying to resolve the first and last name showing issue), below is a section of my friends list...

I've logged my ID bourbon_bee on as "invisible"	now I change my Stealth settings...
all the ID's shown above are italicized which indicates that I am "invisible" to them all, bee_geek_nz is online as is beesitoy	so that I now appear Online to beesitoy
my status is still "invisible" but I am now "available" to beesitoy...
bee_geek_nz is still italicized so I am still "invisible" to them	beesitoy is now standard text which indicates that I am now showing as "available" to them.
bourbon_bee (my own ID added to my friends list) is still italicized which shows me that I still appear "offline"

Some points to note...
Appear Online to {Yahoo!ID} is temporary, as such it will only be relevant for that IM session, when you log off the selection is reset.
Appear Offline to {Yahoo!ID} is temporary, as such it will only be relevant for that IM session, when you log off the selection is reset.
Appear Permanently Offline to {Yahoo!ID} is stickable, that being when you log off the setting will remain and still be set to Permanently Offline when you next login.

Signing on as invisible is a dang handy feature but like most things in life it's not perfect. Invisible status, as with Stealth settings, are subject to user error / misunderstanding and also Yahoo! quirks, to find out more about those, how to avoid them, and how others are finding out you're invisible, check out our article Yahoo! Messenger Invisible ~ How they know

Links:
our article Yahoo! Messenger Invisible / Stealth Quirks
our forum thread Yahoo Messenger (beta) V6,0,0,1555
our article Yahoo! Messenger v6 Beta Stealth Settings
Yahoo! Messenger Stealth Feature
Yahoo! Messenger Help What Are Stealth Settings