What Does Active Mean on Tinder?

Tinder's Recently Active is a way to show who's actively using the app. It's exciting to know that that pretty face was just looking at their phone -- potentially a few swipes away from seeing you. That green dot could mean the love of your life.

This just adds to the excitement of the app. You want to be active on Tinder so you can match with as many people as possible. Otherwise, why did you even make a Tinder account? Go for that green dot so you can start chatting as soon as possible.

You can also skip the people who don't show signs of being online recently. Why did they download the app if they aren't going to use it?

When a Tinder profile has "Recently Active" status, it means that that person has been online in the past 24 hours.

When a Tinder profile has "Online Now" status, it means that they've been online in the past 2 hours.

That's what recently active means. You can't see the precise moment when someone is active like you can with Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp. You can only see when someone is active recently.

If you're feeling paranoid about your crush still being "online" even after you've both gone to bed, you can lay your worries to rest; Tinder doesn't show the exact moment when someone is active or actively swiping. The active status and green dot stay there long after they've logged off.

Yes -- you can hide the fact that you were online recently. Just open Tinder, tap the profile icon, go to settings, scroll down to Recently Active Status, set the toggle "Show Activity Status" to Off. You won't be shown as active on Tinder anymore and the green dot will go away.

There are other ways to know if someone was recently active on Tinder. This involves checking their profile to see if the Tinder bio or profile pictures have changed, or if the distance displayed has changed.

So yes, you don't need the green dot to know if someone's been recently active. But these alternative ways only give you a vague idea of a person's real activity level on the app. In our opinion, this helps to keep online dating safe and casual. You can't know anything private about other users if you only know that they were online in the past few hours.

Not everybody knows about these other ways to see if you've been active on Tinder, either, so hiding the green dot makes your activity invisible to most people. Most people will assume you aren't online and haven't been active on Tinder for awhile. Just don't change stuff around on your profile, otherwise the jig is up.

Now you're an expert on the recently active on Tinder status, the green dot, and how to tell what it means on the profiles of other users, too!

There's only one way to view online Tinder profiles: use Tinder! It will only show users that have been recently active in the last 7 days. Again, the average Tinder user doesn't know this, so they might assume your Tinder account is inactive if you haven't got that green dot showing.

In reality, inactive profiles simply aren't shown. If someone's been online in the past 24 hours, they're likely to be online again soon. Prioritize that green dot when considering swiping left or right. Only active users who have been on the app recently will respond.

Does your Tinder profile stay active to your matches? Yes, your profile and messages will still be visible to them, even if you've been offline for months. You'd have to unmatch them or delete your account to remove yourself from their chat history.

Yes, Tinder controls who you see based on your profile and behavior. You won't see many high-value profiles when you swipe right on every profile and act rude on the dating app.

They won't see you, either -- you'll be pushed down to the place where inactive profiles go and are never seen again!

You won't get many meaningful matches when you first get on the app. Sure, they'll have the green dot and they'll be shown as recently active on Tinder, but they might be slow responders or even bots. Tinder has something like a leveling system: you have to prove that you're a good person before you start getting the good matches.

Level up, and you'll start seeing profiles of people who message quicker and more often. Be selective with your swipes and try to have a positive experience with each match.

This helps promote a positive and fun atmosphere for everyone, and you'll start to reap the rewards once you act accordingly. If you want to see more potential matches, be a decent person. After a little while of being a decent person, you'll start to notice that it feels nicer all around, even without getting matches.

It's actually ingenious -- you won't find success in real life if you act rude or without caring about the other person. The app is simply following what's already true about dating!

Not many people know this, but you can set Tinder to only show your profile to people you've Liked. Nobody else will be able to see your profile. This can be a useful way to not waste time on the dating app.

Just know, if the other person has also changed their app's settings to only show people they've liked, then you'll never see each other. Some may be turned off by this feature due to the possibility that you could miss out on some potential matches.

You can make your Tinder profile only visible to people you've Liked by upgrading to Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold. It's a premium feature.