Gmail Help

Under Chat, click the arrow next to Set status here. Select the status you'd like to appear next to your name in your friends' chat lists. Here's what the different statuses mean:

• Green: Available
• Yellow: Idle. Your status automatically changes to idle when you're away from your computer for 15 minutes. You can't manually select to appear idle.
• Red: Busy. This lets your contacts know you're busy and don't want to be interrupted.
• Grey: Signed out of chat, or Invisible. (If you set your status to 'Invisible,' you'll appear to be signed out even while you're actually signed in.)

You can also create custom status messages. Here's how:

1. From the Set status here drop-down menu, select Custom Message... (you can set custom statuses when you are available and when you're busy).
2. Enter your custom message in the box, and press Enter.

Your status message can be anything you want - something funny, your favorite quote, a cool web link, or just a note to say you're hard at work or away from the computer. To clear your custom message, click the text under your name in Chat and delete it, or select another message from the status drop-down menu.

If you also use the downloadable Google Talk client or the Google Talk Gadget, your status will be shared by the applications, as long as you're signed in to all of them. Please note however, that if you've set your status to 'Invisible,' and sign in to the Google Talk client, you will not be kept 'Invisible,' as the Google Talk client doesn't currently have the 'Invisible' status feature. Keep in mind that you can sign out of chat in Gmail, and still be online through Google Talk and vice versa.

More information:

• Who can see when I'm online?
• Blocking someone