Best Practices for Slack Notification Settings

Overview

We understand it can be difficult to focus on your work when your computer constantly notifies you of new messages. To help reduce noise, Slack offers several ways to customize notifications. You can adjust the sound, timing, and appearance of your notifications for specific channels, direct messages, or huddles. You can also have different notification settings for your desktop and mobile devices. The following are suggested best practices for Slack notification settings.

Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

By default, you’ll receive desktop and mobile notifications when:

• Someone sends you a direct message (DM).
• Someone mentions you, notifies a channel you’re in, or uses one of your keywords.
• Someone replies to a thread you're following.

These defaults apply to both desktop and mobile notifications unless you adjust your preferences. You will find the best practices for each notification configuration below.

Access your notification settings

To access your notification preferences in your desktop app:

1. Click your profile picture in the lower left corner of the app.
2. Select Preferences from the menu.
3. Select Notifications from the left navigation.

Note: Your notification settings will remain the same across each U-M Slack workspace of which you are a member.

Messaging defaults

How to notify you

The How to notify you section lets you choose whether to receive desktop notifications, mobile notifications, or both. We recommend at least checking the Desktop notifications box. If you are often out and about on campus and need to stay up to date on incoming Slack notifications, we recommend checking the Mobile notifications box as well.

What to notify you about

• The What to notify you about drop-down lets you choose whether to be notified about all incoming messages or only @ mentions and direct messages (DMs). We recommend selecting Mentions and direct messages to reduce noise.
• The Also notify you about section lets you choose additional message types to be notified about that are outside the regular channel or direct messages. We recommend at least checking the Thread replies and New huddles boxes.
  • If you have set up specific people as VIPs, you probably want to check the Messages from VIPs, even if notifications are paused box.
  • If you would like different settings for mobile notifications, check the Set up mobile overrides box and select the messages you'd like to be notified about via your Slack mobile app.

Channel keywords

• Keywords alert you to conversations in channels you've joined about specific words you set. Anytime someone uses one of your keywords in a message, you'll receive a notification and see the keyword highlighted in yellow. (Keywords in messages sent in threads won't trigger a notification.) Learn more about channel keywords.
• We do not have specific recommendations regarding keywords. However, it’s never a bad idea to include “urgent” and “emergency” if desired.

Notification schedule

After setting a notification schedule, you will only receive notifications during the days and hours you choose. Notifications will be paused when received outside your schedule. We recommend selecting Weekdays from the Allow notifications drop-down menu and your normal work hours in the drop-downs beside it.

Set a default time for reminder notifications

When you ask Slack to remind you about something on a specific day (like “tomorrow” or “every Tuesday”), it will be delivered at 9 a.m. in your time zone on that day. You can adjust this time as desired. We recommend setting it to the time you start work.

When you’re not active on desktop…

• You can configure when Slack sends notifications to your mobile device and/or email. We recommend selecting After I’ve been inactive for 5 minutes from the drop-down in this section.
• If you're away and inactive on Slack for more than two weeks, check the "If I'm not active for more than 2 weeks..." box to receive a mobile notification summarizing the activity you've missed.
• If you would like to receive email notifications about Slack messages, click the Set Email Notifications button. Your Slack account settings will open in a new browser window, where you can adjust these notifications as desired. We do not have any recommendations for email notifications, but be mindful of how you configure them, as they can become spammy and clog your inbox.

Sound & appearance

The Sound & appearance settings allow you to choose how notifications look, sound, and behave. You can choose whether to display message previews in banner notifications and select which notification sound alerts you (if desired) about:

• New messages
• VIP messages
• Huddles
• Sending a DM
• Receiving a DM while in the conversation

Note: You can also customize calendar notifications if you use the Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook apps for Slack. 

Settings may vary slightly depending on which Slack app (Mac, Windows, or browser) you are using. The following recommendations apply to each version.

For Mac:

1. Check the Include a preview of the message in each notification box
   • If you would prefer more privacy, uncheck this box. The notification will only include the sender's name when unchecked.
2. If you do not want notification sounds while using the desktop app, check the Mute all messaging sounds from Slack and Mute all huddle sounds from Slack boxes. Otherwise, if checked, select the sound you would like to hear when you receive a notification for:
   • Messages
   • VIP messages
   • Sending a message
   • Receiving a message while in a conversation
   • Huddles
3. Check the Show a badge on Slack’s icon to indicate new activity box.
4. Check the Bounce Slack’s icon when receiving a notification box.
5. Check the Only bounce it once box.

For Windows:

On Windows, you will see notifications in two places: the taskbar and the Windows Action Center (also known as the notification center by Microsoft).

1. Check the Include a preview of the message in each notification box
   • If you would prefer more privacy, uncheck this box. The notification will only include the sender's name when unchecked.
2. If you do not want notification sounds while using the desktop app, check the Mute all messaging sounds from Slack and Mute all huddle sounds from Slack boxes. Otherwise, if checked, select the sound you would like to hear when you receive a notification for:
   • Messages
   • VIP messages
   • Sending a message
   • Receiving a message while in a conversation
   • Huddles
3. Select When left idle under Flash window when a notification is received.
   • If you select Always, the Slack icon in the taskbar will stay there even when the desktop app is closed.
4. Select Windows Action Center (abbreviated) from the Deliver notifications via… drop-down menu.
   • If you select Slack's built-in notifications, you will need to choose the notification position and the display it appears on (if using multiple displays).

By default on Windows, the Slack app runs in the notifications area even when the window is closed. You can turn off this setting if desired:

1. Click Advanced from the left navigation in Preferences.
2. Scroll down to the Other options section.
3. Uncheck the Leave app running in notification area when the window is closed box.

For web browser:

1. Click the Enable notifications link at the bottom of the screen.
   • Depending on your browser, it will open a dialog beside your address bar at the top. Click Allow (or a similarly named option) to allow Slack to send notifications in your browser.
2. Check the Include a preview of the message in each notification box
   • If you would prefer more privacy, uncheck this box. The notification will only include the sender's name when unchecked.
3. If you do not want notification sounds while using the desktop app, check the Mute all messaging sounds from Slack and Mute all huddle sounds from Slack boxes. Otherwise, if checked, select the sound you would like to hear when you receive a notification for:
   • Messages
   • VIP messages
   • Sending a message
   • Receiving a message while in a conversation
   • Huddles

Channel-specific notification settings

You can set notification preferences for specific channels and group direct messages (DMs) with three or more people. If you'd rather not receive notifications about any messages in a particular channel, group DM, or regular DM, you can also mute the conversation. (Although it’s not possible to mute Slackbot notifications.)

Note: You can mute an entire workspace by hiding it with your workspace filter.

We do not have specific recommendations for channel notifications, but caution that if you mute notifications for a channel or DM, you will only be notified if someone mentions you directly. To access these settings:

1. Go to the channel or group DM for which you'd like to set notifications.
2. Click the bell icon in the top right corner of the channel or group DM.
3. Select what you'd like Slack to notify you about: All new posts (Messages and threads you follow), Just mentions (@you, @channel, @here), or Mute channel (only @you mentions).
4. Select Advanced options to customize notifications across devices, whether you're notified about every new thread and its replies, and whether you're notified when someone uses @channel or @here.

After setting channel/DM-specific notification settings, you can view a list of channels and DMs with special settings (including muted conversations) from your Preferences under Exceptions to the defaults in Notifications.

Additional Resources

The Slack Help Center provides additional, thorough documentation around notifications.

• Configure your Slack notifications
• Guide to Slack notifications
• Troubleshoot Slack notifications
• Manage notifications for specific channels and direct messages
• Mute channels and direct messages
• Pause your Slack notifications