But perhaps you’re the type who prefers to keep to yourself. Luckily, you have the option to be a little more secretive about what games you play and when you’re playing your games on the Nintendo Switch. It is just a matter of changing a few privacy settings.
How to Choose Your Switch Best Friends
The Nintendo Switch allows you to have up to 300 friends, and one way of managing them all is to select your Best Friends from your Friend List.
Your Best Friends will show up at the top of your Friend List, and you can have different settings for your Best Friends and the rest of your friends if you so choose.
Steps to making one of your friends a Best Friend:
From the HOME menu, select your profile page from the top left corner. Select Friend List on the left. Select the friend you would like to make a Best Friend. Select the Best Friend button, which is marked with a star icon. A friend is your Best Friend when this star icon is filled in.
There are several ways to secure your Nintendo account on Switch. However, separating your Friends list out like this is the first step to improving your privacy when you’re playing your Switch online. Best Friends can get certain privileges over regular Friends on your list.
Choose Who Can See Your Switch Online Status
We all have that friend that always jumps at the opportunity to play multiplayer with you as soon as you login. While that can be a whole lot of fun, sometimes you just want to play a game without being disturbed.
You can set whether your friends can see if you are currently online. Keep in mind that people who cannot see your online status may not be able to join you in online play.
From the HOME menu, select your profile page from the top left corner. Select User Settings on the left. Scroll down to the Friend Functions section and select Friend Settings. Open Display online status to: and select All Friends, Best Friends, or No One from the drop-down menu to choose who you’d like to allow to see your online status.
This information will be visible to other people who use the same console, regardless of what how you customize this setting.
Choose Who Can See Your Switch Play Activity
Your Nintendo Switch play activity refers to the information on when you were playing a software title and how long you have played it for. This information may be used to recommend software you have played to other people. You can change who sees this.
From the HOME menu, select your profile page from the top left corner. Select User Settings on the left. Under the Profile Settings section, select Play Activity Settings. Open Display online status to: and select All Friends, Friends, Best Friends, or No One from the drop-down menu to choose who you’d like to allow to see your play activity.
And just like when fiddling with your online status visibility setting, this information will be visible to other people who use the same console, regardless of how you customize this setting.
Are you fixing these settings for more privacy for your child? If so, you should also consider setting up Parental Controls on your Nintendo Switch.
Be as Private as You Like With Switch
Arguably, one of the best parts of getting a new console is being able to customize it in such a way that makes you the most comfortable.
Now that you can share Switch photos and videos, your security while using the console is even more important. So, if you don’t want to share your Switch details with others, you can use this guide to control what you do and don’t share.
