Making Slack work for you
Slack is a wonderful tool, but when it’s not configured correctly, it can become a distraction. Let’s fix that.
- Use the quick switcher
- Star conversations for fast access
- Customize your notifications
- Get rid of sidebar clutter
- Edit your last message in a snap
- Only notify people who are online
1. Use the quick switcher
Press ⌘T or ⌘K to jump to any conversation
Do you want to talk to anyone on Slack? Press ⌘K or ⌘T to jump to any conversation, channel, or group on Slack. No more digging through sidebars!
2. Star conversations for fast access
Hover over the channel name and click the star
Once you’ve joined more than a few channels, it becomes tricky to pick out the conversations you care about from the rest. Starring channels, groups, and users will restore a little bit of your sanity.
In any conversation, hover over the channel or user name and click the star. It will then appear in the Starred section at the top of your sidebar.
3. Customize your notifications
Channel notification preferences…
Click the down arrow next to your team name and select your Channel notification preferences.
You can override your default notifications on a per-channel basis.
- For important, quiet channels, you may want to see every message posted in the channel. Select “activity of any kind” under desktop notifications.
- To lurk in a channel, there are two checkboxes to choose from. You can suppress @channel notifications, or mute the channel entirely. I prefer to mute @channel notifications, so that I still receive alerts when I’m mentioned by name.
P.S. — Slack sets sane notification preferences by default, but if you want to change your global notification preferences, select the team dropdown and navigate to Preferences → Notifications.
4. Get rid of sidebar clutter
Preferences → Advanced Options → Channel List
Is your Slack sidebar an overwhelming jumble of channels you have a passing interest in and names of everyone you’ve ever spoken to? That sounds confusing. There’s a better way.
Click the down arrow next to your team name and open your Preferences. Once you’ve opened your preferences, select the Advanced Options tab.
In the center of the screen, you’ll see a dropdown titled Channel List. This dropdown allows you to control when channels and conversations appear in the Slack sidebar. Here are the options (paraphrased a bit):
- Show everything. “Show all channels, DMs and private groups you have open (default)”
- Only show unread messages. “Hide any channels, DMs or groups which have no unread activity”
- Show starred conversations and unread messages. “Hide any channels, etc., which have no unread activity, unless they are starred”
I chose the third option. It allows me to easily access the channels and conversations I use most frequently. When combined with starred channels and channel notification preferences, this makes for a great way to lurk in channels without becoming distracted.
5. Edit your last message in a snap
Hit ↑ to edit your last message
Did you make a typo? Hit ↑ to edit your last message. Correct your typo, then hit enter to make the world right again.
Did you just accidentally paste your password into Slack? Hurry up and delete it (and then go change your password). Hit ↑ to edit your last message, select everything with ⌘A, delete it, and hit enter. If you’re fast enough, maybe no one will call you out on your pasting blunder. (But you should still change your password.)
6. Only notify people who are online
Using @here mentions everyone in the channel who is online
When you send a message with @channel, @group, or @everyone, notifications are dispatched far and wide. Desktops make that satisfying pop-pop sound, phones buzz in pockets, and another scrap is tossed onto everyone’s personal email mountain.
Sometimes those notifications are necessary. Other times you just want to get the attention of whoever is using Slack right now without plastering your message on every internet-capable device that we collectively own. And for that, you can use @here to message them and avoid nudging everyone else.
This guide was originally published on Hatch, our internal version of Medium, on July 24, 2015. To learn more about Hatch, read Hatching Inside Medium. Thanks to my colleagues Kelly and Zach for putting up with my Slacksplaining and encouraging me to write this post.
Do you have any favorite Slack tips? Share them in the responses!
