I’ve been using Slack since I joined in February 2014—which is shortly after Slack officially released. It’s been the primary way I communicate with my teammates for almost my entire career.
Slack might seem easy (open a channel and send a message), but there’s a lot that goes into making it a pleasant experience for everyone. After more than a decade, I’ve come up with key Slack etiquette tips that will help everything go smoothly with your colleagues—whether you have a few teammates in the same office or hundreds across the globe.
Don’t spam short messages
This is my #1 piece of etiquette advice for every messaging app, not just Slack. It’s much better to send one complete message, rather than a series of short ones.
You should never send Slack messages like this (also known as “Shatner texting”, referencing how William Shatner speaks in short bursts):
Hey!
How are you?
I had a question for you
About that meeting laer
later
Are we supposed to prepare anything for it
?
Thanks!
Sending multiple messages in rapid succession creates a ton of notifications for the other person. Not only is this extremely distracting, but it’s unclear when you’re going to be done typing, and they should respond. Almost no message is so urgent that it warrants this stream-of-consciousness typing style.
It’s far better to collect your thoughts and send a single, complete message. This allows the other person to read and respond to your full thought. It also helps for starting threads (as we’ll discuss in a moment) or linking to a message in another channel.
If you often send messages before you intend to, click your workspace name at the top-left of Slack, choose Preferences, then go to Advanced. Under When writing a message, press Enter to, choose Start a new line). With this, Ctrl + Enter sends a new message, making it much harder to send one early by mistake.
Another tip along the same lines, referenced in my example above: if you make an error, edit the original message to fix it instead of sending another ping with a correction. Shift + Up arrow will edit the last message you sent in Slack, or you can click the three-dot menu to the right of any message and choose Edit message.
Utilize threads
Messages in Slack channels can move quickly. Threads are an important way to keep discussions contained for those who need to be involved, while keeping the channel easier to read for others. Without threads, if a channel is having an ongoing discussion about one topic, it’s difficult for someone to jump in and ask about another.
Click the Reply in thread button to start a new one, if nobody else has yet. When there’s a message in a thread that’s relevant to the whole channel, check the Also send to [channel name] box, and it will appear in the main chat. If you forget to do this, you can always select Send reply to this channel from the three-dot menu later.
The main disadvantage of threads is that their notification panel can quickly become cluttered. I thus recommend staying on top of those alerts. If you need to come back later, holding Alt and clicking a message marks it as unread.
Take advantage of reactions
Slack reactions allow you to put any emoji beneath a message, which is incredibly handy. Head to Preferences > Messages & media and enable Show one-click reactions on messages to set three quick reactions (your most-used, or any of your choice). Click the Find another reaction icon to choose another when needed.
Reactions are great because they let you respond to a message without sending a ping. As discussed, it’s distracting to get an alert that only says “Thanks!”. Instead, you can react with a heart emoji to show your appreciation.
Reactions can act as read receipts, acknowledging an announcement or other important message (it’s frustrating not to know if anyone bothered to read your message). You can use them to ask people for quick responses, like if they prefer design A or B, without getting dozens of messages back. They can also show your feelings about a proposal, that you’re taking a look at something, etc.
Because emojis can have many different meanings, it’s a good idea to agree upon a few standard emojis for your workplace. The 👀 emoji could mean “I’m actively looking at this” to one group, while it means “Ooh, this is cool” for another.
Don’t react with a question mark emoji. This adds no value and means the other person has to prompt you for your question.
Don’t ask to ask
Following from the first point: when you have a question, you should ask it directly. Sending “Can I ask you a question about spreadsheets?” means they have to say “yes” and ask you for more information. This is a waste of time, results in more notifications, and keeps the person thinking about the issue until it’s resolved.
It’s wise to aim for asynchronous communication on Slack as much as possible, especially if your team works across time zones. If you work at drastically different times, a simple question could take days to resolve when you don’t ask it clearly up front. And even if you work at the same time, “hey” is a pointless first message.
Instead, send a complete message with your question and any context. That way, the person can respond when they’re able and point you in the right direction if they can’t help.
Set your status to keep everyone updated
Slack lets you set a custom status that appears next to your name for as long as you specify. This is a great way to communicate information to your team without having to reach out to several people individually.
While your status doesn’t need to reflect up-to-the-minute changes, you should use it to let colleagues know if you aren’t normally available. When you’re in a meeting, off sick for the day, out for an appointment, or in “deep focus” mode, take a moment to set a status (be sure to set the appropriate length of time under Remove status after). That way, anyone who tries to contact you will know what’s up.
Ping with @ mentions sparingly
Using an @ mention grabs the person’s attention with a ping and marks the channel accordingly. While mentions are fine in moderation, you shouldn’t overuse them. You don’t need to @ mention someone just because they came up in a conversation; only do that when you want to make sure they see the message.
@here and @channel are two special tags that ping everyone in the channel who’s online or all channel members, respectively. Use the former for time-sensitive messages that won’t apply to people who are offline. For example, if there’s planned maintenance for the next hour, you don’t need to use @channel because people who are on vacation, asleep in another time zone, etc. aren’t affected.
@channel should be used sparingly for messages that everyone truly needs to see (such as announcements or guideline changes). It pings everyone unless they’re in Do Not Disturb, and will show an unread badge when they’re next online.
Slack lets you create custom @ mention groups. If you find yourself pinging the same groups of people often, ask your Slack admin to set up @sales, @technical, or similar.
Discuss in public channels as much as possible
Slack is at its best as a collaboration platform. When you can, you should send messages in public channels so everyone can benefit from them. DMs have their place, but public channels are best treated as the default.
In public discussions, you can easily loop in new people with @ mentions, rather than having to create a new group DM and re-explain to the new person. You can link to the messages to easily keep track of important information, and other people can find the discussion later by searching for it.
Even if people aren’t directly involved in something, a discussion may result in something useful for them to know. One of my Slack pet peeves is “playing telephone”, where I act as the middleman by passing messages between different parties. Defaulting to public discussions solves this.
Miscellaneous Slack Etiquette
A few other bite-sized pieces of Slack courtesy: always search Slack before asking a question. The search tool is robust, allowing you to filter by date, channel, person, and much more. It’s worth checking to make sure you aren’t asking the same question for the third time this week.
Also, avoid duplicating messages. For example, if you ask someone a question in a DM and they don’t answer immediately, don’t then ask it in a public channel too. This wastes time for the individual because they might later see your DM before the public message, and will waste time replying when someone has already. Instead, ask publicly and @ mention or send a link to the message via DM, as needed. That keeps all communication about that topic in one place.
Finally, take the time to format messages clearly—especially long ones. Sending a wall of text means your teammates are less likely to read it all and digest what you said. Use bullet points, line breaks, emojis, and bold text to show what the key points are, so they don’t have to read an essay.
Kindness in Slack goes a long way
These are the ways I’ve found to be courteous to my teammates after more than 11 years of using Slack. Every team uses it differently, but these principles will keep annoyances to a minimum.
Don’t forget about Slack’s handy Do Not Disturb feature, which will help prevent you from being bothered after hours by teammates who haven’t read these tips. Customizing your Slack workspace will also make it a more friendly place.
