Best way to disable Steam Chat (no side effects)

[Stingy Jack]

As probably some of you I too was looking for a way to disable Steam Chat in Steam client. I won't be going into explanation why I want this, as this is irrelevant really. What is relevant however is that I found no elegant way of achieving that goal. All I found in numerous forum threads and on numerous 'how-to sites' was either to use Family Mode or disable chat auto-login altogether. While both methods somewhat work, they both have negative side effects. First of all none of your friends will be able to see which games you're playing or in case with disabling auto-login that you're even online for that matter. And ofc you have to constantly deal with Family Mode PIN every time you want to change settings or do other things that are not available in Family Mode.
The way I'm going to describe here has no such side effects or any side effect for that matter.
So let's begin, shall we?

How-to:
1. Open Steam chat friends list.
2. Next to your nickname press \/ (half arrow down) symbol.
3. In small window that will pop-up to the right select 'Do Not Disturb'
4. Close all chat windows and they will never come back again.

Basically chat will still be available and usable, but no windows will pop up effectively allowing you to keep Steam client in a 'single window mode'. Evidently, if you want to revert that change just remove that check box and everything will be back to like it was by default.

Now I presume some or even many of you have figured that out, but since I literally found no mentions of this and came to it on my way of trying to disable that bloody chat window I decided it's worth sharing it.

I am in fact using browser version of Steam chat for my own reasons. This method allows me to use both chat and Steam client independently without interfering with each other.

Hope that helps someone. Cheers.

P.S. Please don't bother asking silly questions like why do you need it and etc. I'm not gonna waste my time explaining my reasons to you. If you don't care about this solution, please just move along and don't flood the tread with useless comments. Thank you.

[eram]

you can just turn off chat if you like.

[crunchyfrog]

Yeah, eram's right. Simply log out/turn off chat.

[Carlos100]

"First of all none of your friends will be able to see which games you're playing or in case with disabling auto-login that you're even online for that matter."
Why would this bother you as you dont wont to chat with them?

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by First Ranger:

Thanks for your great suggestions, guys!
It doesn't seem like you were reading were carefully though.

Oh I certainly was. I read carefully twice.

I mentioned what I said because you didn't mention it