The short answer
The control you are looking for lives in the Play Games profile settings under General, where Google exposes Gaming Community List Visibility. It can be set for all games or for individual games. That is the switch that decides which games can read the list.
Google Play Games has Gaming Community List Visibility settings for all games and individual games. Source
Before you change it, be clear about what the list actually contains. It is not a contact list and it is not an email directory.
The list contains gamer names of followers whom you follow back, not their email addresses. Source
What the setting does and does not do
The setting governs access to a mutual-follow list. It does not make your profile public or private, it does not sign you in or out, and it does not touch your saved game progress. Those are separate actions with separate controls.
Use this table to keep the tasks apart:
| What you want to change | What it affects | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Which games can read your community list | Access to the list of gamer names | Play Games profile settings, General, Gaming Community List Visibility |
| Who can see your profile | Your profile’s audience | Profile visibility settings, not the community-list control |
| Whether you are signed in | Your current session | Your Google account and Play Games sign-in |
| Your saved progress | Game data held by the game or service | The individual game’s own settings or support |
If you are on a supervised account, the followers feature is not available, so the community-list question may not apply to you at all.
On Google Play, profile settings under General, Play Games Profile expose the community-list control; supervised accounts do not have the followers feature. Source
Before-and-after checklist
Before you change anything:
- Confirm which Google account is active in Play Games, so you are editing the right profile.
- Open Play Games profile settings, then General, and find Gaming Community List Visibility.
- Note whether the current setting is for all games or for individual games.
- Write down the current state, so you can reverse the change if needed.
- Decide whether you want a blanket setting or per-game control.
After you change it:
- Reopen the same settings screen and confirm the new state is saved.
- If you chose per-game control, check each game you care about individually.
- Do not assume the change affects profile visibility, sign-in, or game progress; verify those separately if they matter to you.
- If a game behaves unexpectedly, return to the same screen and compare it with the state you wrote down.
Failure boundaries
This setting is not a way to enumerate another person’s friends. It controls access to your own list, which contains gamer names of mutual follows, not email addresses. It also does not prove any relationship beyond the follow-back that puts a name on the list.
Changing visibility does not guarantee that anything already read or stored elsewhere is erased. It is an access control, not a deletion tool. If your concern is stored data rather than current access, treat that as a separate question and check the relevant game or service directly.
A username search is not a substitute for these settings. TraceSeek can check known public usernames across 3,000+ platforms, but it cannot operate Google Play settings or read a private community list. Public matches are leads, not proof of ownership, and a search is not a complete account inventory.
If you are only trying to find where a known public username appears, TraceSeek offers a free first scan that takes 20-30 seconds, with no registration or login required. That is a different task from controlling what a game can read inside Play Games.