Tips for using the Slack app

Emad Mokhtar

Sep 17, 2023 — 3 min read

Shortcuts

Search

Slack has a powerful search engine, I encourage you to use it. To access the search from anywhere in Slack, use cmd+G for macOS or ctrl+G for Windows and Linux. Use this when you're in doubt, like, "Where did I read something?" or "Where did you post something?" or search for an old message/file.

Edit a Message

After posting a message, you can spot a typo or a grammar mistake. It happens a lot to the best of us. I have a personal workflow for that. The first step is to navigate to your message. This can be done by pressing the up arrow key ⬆. In case the navigation isn't working, try to activate the new message box and press the up arrow key ⬆. After highlighting your message, press the "E" key. Now that you're in edit mode, you can fix your message.

Undo Posting a Message

After posting a message, you find it's in a wrong channel or the message is irrelevant. You can unsend your message using cmd+Z for macOS or ctrl+Z for Windows and Linux.

Settings

Pause notifications

Slack, as a company, is enthusiastic about work/life balance. You can find this in the application. For example, you can receive notifications during a certain time period. Outside this time period, the notification will be paused.

I preferred to receive notifications from 08:00 to 18:00 during the workweek. This means that outside of these periods, I won’t receive any notifications.

Enter for new line

I can’t count how many times I've sent an incomplete message mistakenly. I think Enter will add a newline. But Enter is sending a message. To find that, you can set Enter to add a newline instead of sending the message.

To achieve that, go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Input option

One-click reaction (aka reactmojis)

When you hover over any message, you’ll see 3 emojis. You can customize these 3 emojis. Go to Preferences -> Messages & Media -> Emoji, select the three emojis.

Profile

Status

While working in Slack, I realized the reason behind Slack’s status. We always used it to communicate with your teammates. Whether you're away from the keyboard (AFK), sick, having time-off, eating lunch, exercising, walking, etc., please keep in mind that Slack is an essential asynchronous communication tool. So use it to communicate to your colleagues what you're doing; they can see you. While I'm writing this article, I'm communicating with my colleagues that I'm on my way to the office. Here is my status.

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