LinkedIn Active Status: What the Green Dot Means and How to Hide It
On LinkedIn, a solid green dot on someone's photo means they are active on LinkedIn now. A hollow green circle means they are not, but the mobile app will notify them at once. Turn yours off under Settings & Privacy, Visibility, Manage active status; with No one, you also stop seeing other people's status.
To turn off your LinkedIn active status, go to Settings & Privacy, Visibility, Manage active status, and choose No one; we did that on a real account on 2 October 2026, and LinkedIn says the change can take up to 30 minutes. LinkedIn's help page adds the catch: with active status off, you also lose the ability to see when your connections are active. Active status is the green dot on a person's profile photo in LinkedIn Messaging. A solid green dot means they are active on LinkedIn right now and will be notified at once if you message them. A hollow green circle means they are not using LinkedIn now, but they have push notifications on in the LinkedIn mobile app, so your message still reaches their phone at once. No dot means they are not active, or they turned active status off.
What does the green dot mean on LinkedIn?
| What you see | What it means | When they get your message |
|---|---|---|
| Solid green dot | Active on LinkedIn now | At once |
| Hollow green circle (a white circle with a green outline) | Not on LinkedIn now; push notifications are on in the mobile app | At once, on their phone |
| No dot | Not active, or active status is off | When they next open Messaging |
These definitions come from LinkedIn's help page "Active status in LinkedIn Messaging". The dots show in Messaging, on the photos of your 1st-degree connections, and in the messaging panel at the bottom of the desktop site. In the LinkedIn mobile app, a timestamp next to a hollow-circle photo shows when the person was last active.
Two green things on LinkedIn are not active status:
- • The green #OpenToWork frame around a photo means the person is looking for a job. It has nothing to do with being online.
- • The purple #Hiring frame means the person is hiring.
LinkedIn does not publish how long the solid dot stays after someone closes LinkedIn, and a dot does not mean the person is reading your message. It means the LinkedIn app or site is open, or was used recently.
How to turn off active status on LinkedIn
On desktop:
In the mobile app, tap your profile photo, tap Settings, then Visibility, and Manage active status.
This is the page on a real account, opened on 2 October 2026, with No one selected:
You get three choices:
The page itself warns that "changes to this setting may take up to 30 minutes to take effect", so a dot can linger for half an hour after you switch to No one.
We also checked the trade-off. With the setting on No one, we opened LinkedIn Messaging and read the page code: all 11 presence markers in the conversation list were hidden and labelled "Status is offline". That matches LinkedIn's rule that you lose other people's status, though some of those 11 people may have been offline anyway.
Can someone tell I am online on LinkedIn without the dot?
Yes, in other ways. With active status off, people can still see:
FAQ
Does the green dot mean they read my message?
No. Read receipts show that. The dot only means LinkedIn is open or was used recently.
Can my employer see my LinkedIn job search?
No. Searches, saved jobs and applications are private. The #OpenToWork frame and profile updates are not; see can my employer see if I'm looking for a job on LinkedIn.
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