If there’s been a new message posted to a channel since you last looked at it, Slack marks the channel as having an unread message. When you next open a channel with an unread message, Slack starts you at the place you left off, allowing you to smoothly catch up with all of the messages posted since you last looked. Now, Slack is making it much easier to catch up with unread messages. The company is adding a new feature called All Unreads, which will show all of the unread messages from your Slack team in one place. The page will show Direct Messages, as well as messages from all the different Channels and Slack Apps which is pretty neat.
- Mark As Unread In Messenger
- Slack Mark As Unread
- Mark As Unread Meaning
- Slack Mark Unread Iphone
- Mark Message As Unread
Slack is one of the most popular communication tools for remote teams. With the ability to coordinate conversations by a specific theme, within a team or company-wide, there is great power in this platform.
Long popular with remote teams, here are some tips and tricks that you might have missed.
Use these to make the most of your time and communication efforts.
We will cover:
Notification Management
Pin important messages
Keyboard shortcuts
Polls and surveys
Star items = quick list
Slackbot Reminders
Include posts
Keyword Notifications
Find mentions quickly
Search Smarter
Quick link to previous posts
Bookmark location in a channel
Formatting for Impact
Deep Work Time – DND
Customized Emojis
Integrate! Apps, bots, and workflows
Notification Management
- You may not need notifications for all activity within a channel. Adjust your notification requirements by selecting the settings icon (cog) at the top of the channel on desktop or using the drop-down menu (3 dots) on mobile, then settings, then notifications/notification preferences.
Pin important messages
- You might want to pin the most current update of the project you are working on or your guide to using the channel. You can pin up to 100 messages per channel, but keeping it to crucial information is better.
Keyboard shortcuts
- You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate around the Workspace, mark a message as read or unread, format your messages, and more. Saving time and giving flow and process to your time in Slack.
- When all the pictures and GIFs are making it hard to follow the conversation type “/collapse” into your text box, which will leave text only within the chat and reverse this type “/expand.”
- To see the list of shortcuts hit “ctrl” and “/.”
Polls and surveys
- Want to get some quick feedback from the team? Or trying to decide on meeting times? Use the command “/poll” and follow the instructions to call up the “Polly” app. Both powerful and fun.
Star items = quick list
- Click “Show starred items” or use the keyboard shortcut “crtl_shift+s” for a quick list of all your starred messages. This hack can be useful to quickly review essential items and help you to come back to something you might not have time to handle at the moment.
Slackbot Reminders
- Use the “/remind” command to give you a personal reminder, or to remind someone else on your team. An example is “/remind @Jeff of meeting at 2 pm”, your reminder will be sent at 2 pm to Jeff about your upcoming meeting.
Include posts
- Where you need to share longer-form content, you can include posts in your Slack messages. You might want to share project plans, or quickly link to your code of conduct, vision, and mission statements.
- Create a post – (On your desktop). Select the attachment icon (paperclip) → “Create new” → “Post.” From here, you can share your post, edit it, allow others to edit it, format the article, and add images to it—further instructions via the Slack help section.
Keyword Notifications
- While you will get notifications if you are tagged or mentioned, it can be useful to get a notification. Likewise, when someone uses a specific keyword. Go to preferences, then notifications to set up your desired keywords. You will receive the notification, and the channel will display a badge.
Find mentions quickly
- You can use the @ symbol on the top right on desktop to show, or hide, mentions if you are looking for a recent conversation (or you’re drowning in notifications). Or use the keyboard shortcut “ctrl” + ”shift” + ”m” to show and hide your mentions.
Search Smarter
- Use modifiers that help you to search smarter. “From:user”, “in:channel”, “during:March”, or “has:emoji-code”, this one is particularly useful if you follow a specific process of emoji usage within your Workspace. You can find a complete list of search modifiers here.
Quick link to previous posts
- Using the timestamp (time beside your name above a post), you can copy this as a link and paste into a new post, bringing old posts back into the conversation quickly.
Bookmark a location in a channel
- Some channels require more attention from us than others, if you need to read everything in the channel then use “Alt+click” on the message where you are leaving the channel, it will mark all subsequent messages as unread. On mobile, this should be a long press/hold on the message.
Formatting for Impact
- Need certain parts of a post to stand out? Then use formatting. E.g., using * either side of a word will embolden it i.e., *here* now becomes here. Or traditional keyboard shortcuts also work. You can also add formatting like inline code or block quotes, very useful to help faster communication of crucial information. More on formatting your messages from Slack.
Deep Work Time – DND
- DND – You can type in “/dnd” into the text box and then set a time, or use the bell icon to the top left and select a time frame. Stopping you from receiving any sounds or notifications in the time frame you specify, and your co-workers will see a sleeping symbol beside your name.
Customized Emojis
- Emojis can be useful to speed up communication within your team or to help strengthen branding and team identity. You can add the custom emojis from the drop-down menu on the top left and choose “Customize Slack.” Admins have the power to limit who can edit these.
Integrate! Apps, bots, and workflows
- Slack supports integrations with 100s of apps. Here is a list of some of the most popular ones. See the Slack help center for details on each and a full list of apps available, follow this link: Zoom for SlackStart a meeting, join a meeting and make a call with Zoom phone. Remember, you must register your Slack and Zoom accounts with the same email address.
- Trello for SlackManage cards on your boards from Slack, add conversations to cards, and update due dates.
- Asana for SlackCreate new tasks and turn your conversations in Slack into to-dos in Asana
- Salesforce for SlackSearch Salesforce records from Slack, configure Salesforce alerts for Slack. Send Slack messages to SalesForce, or send Salesforce records to Slack.
- Twitter for SlackYou can set up mentions on Twitter to feed into a channel that the team can keep an eye on. Follow similar businesses or your suppliers.
- Google Calendar for SlackView your full schedule and have your status update when you are scheduled in a meeting.
- Donut for SlackDonut helps to improve team-building; there are prebuilt connection programs in Donut, one of the most popular functions is virtual random coffees. Help to encourage cross-organizational bonding.
- Loom for SlackMention @person or #channel directly in your Loom videos, and they can watch the clip without needing to leave Slack.
- Polly for Slack. This Polls and surveys bot lets you get quick feedback. Use pulse surveys directly in Slack.
- Greetbot for Slack. An onboarding assistant for Slack. Customize welcome messages and schedule follow-ups.
- You can also create custom integrations, build your bot, create automated workflows, and much more, read more on this via the Slack help center here.
Do you have a workflow or trick that works well for you in Slack? Then please share it with us over on Twitter @Turingcom.
- How to be a successful remote software engineer Oct 27, 2020 This blog post covers how a developer can be recognized,…
- Onboarding to a new team as an engineering leader Oct 26, 2020 In this post, Jean Hsu of Range shares some guiding…
- Vetting Candidates for Remote Work | Turing Hire Feb 5, 2020 What you need to know about a candidate to make…
- 10 Best Cities on Earth for Remote Workers Feb 3, 2020 Remote workers enjoy an enviable combination of freedom, productivity and…
- Remote Now! A Quick Guide to Remote Work… Mar 16, 2020 In a world where so many are going suddenly remote…
- How to Become a Remote Developer | Turing Jobs Feb 5, 2020 My goal with this post is to tell you how…
- Why a ‘Deep Jobs’ Platform is a Better… Mar 13, 2021 Turing offers vetting, onboarding, payments, time tracking, performance monitoring, and…
- GitLab’s Darren Murph reveals secrets of… Mar 1, 2021 Darren Murph, GitLab's head of remote, shares the do’s and…
- Things to know to get hired as a Turing Engineer Sep 17, 2020 To help you out, we’ve reached out to some Turing…
- Key Takeaways from Turing’s Boundaryless:… Mar 5, 2021 Top engineering leaders who have built large, remote developer teams…
- Slack has a keyboard shortcut for virtually every command or task you can perform on the messaging platform.
- Slack's keyboard shortcuts allow you to use the mouse less often while navigating multiple workplaces and channels or managing messages and files.
- Here are the 48 most useful and productive keyboard shortcuts for Slack on Mac and PC.
Slack has become a go-to platform for communication between groups and teams. If you spend most of your day with Slack open in the corner of your screen, whether for work or play, you should know a few of the most common keyboard shortcuts to the communication platform.
These will help you get around the popular tool quickly and easily on your Mac and PC without switching between the keyboard and mouse frequently. Here's a guide to the most useful Slack shortcuts.
Check out the products mentioned in this article:
Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)
Acer Chromebook 15 (From $179.99 at Walmart)
Slack keyboard shortcuts summary
Below is a quick reference list of the 48 top keyboard shortcuts in Slack. If you need a more detailed explanation of a shortcut, scroll down to the section below.
Note: If you're using a Mac instead of a PC, wherever you see 'Ctrl,' press the 'Command' key instead. The shortcuts are identical with that exception.
Navigating workplaces
- Switch to a specific workplace: Ctrl + [number]
- Switch to next workplace: Ctrl + Tab
- Switch to previous workplace: Ctrl + Shift + Tab
Navigating Slack
- Open preferences: Ctrl + comma (,)
- Change focus: F6 or Shift F6
- Browse direct messages: Ctrl + Shift + K
- Browse channels: Ctrl + Shift + L
- Jump to a conversation: Ctrl + K
- Compose a new message: Ctrl + N
- Open Thread View: Ctrl + Shift + T
- Next unread channel or direct message: Alt + Shift + Up Arrow/Down Arrow
- Open channel info pane: Ctrl + Shift + I
- See mentions and reactions: Ctrl + Shift + M
- List of all people: Ctrl + Shift + E
- Saved items: Ctrl + Shift + S
- Set status: Ctrl + Shift + Y
- Search the current channel or conversation: Ctrl + F
- Open previous search: Ctrl + G
Navigating unread messages
- Move between messages: Up Arrow or Down Arrow
- Open All Unread View: Ctrl + Shift + A
- Mark as unread: Alt n + [mouse click]
Working with messages
Note: Before using the following single-letter commands, click or press the F6 key to bring a particular message into focus, then navigate through the messages using the up and down arrows on your keyboard.
- Edit a message: E
- Add an emoji: R
- Open a reply: T
- Pin or unpin a message: P
- Share a message: S
- Save a message: A
- Make a reminder: M
- Mark all messages as read: Shift + Esc
- Mark all messages in a channel as read: Esc
Formatting messages
- Edit last message: Ctrl + Up Arrow
- Make a new line: Shift + Enter
- Select text back to start of line: Shift + Up Arrow
- Select text to end of line: Shift + Down Arrow
- Add an emoji: Ctrl + Shift +
- Bold: Ctrl + B
- Italics: Ctrl + I
- Strikethrough: Ctrl + Shift + X
- Quote: Ctrl + Shift + 9
- Code: Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C
- Numbered list: Ctrl + Shift + 7
- Bulleted list: Ctrl + Shift + 8
Making calls
- Turn video on and off: V
- Turn mute on and off: M
- See invite list: A
- Send an emoji: E
Working with files
- Upload a file: Ctrl + U
- View downloaded files: Ctrl + Shift + J
Slack keyboard shortcuts explained
If you find that what a keyboard shortcut does isn't entirely clear, refer to it here in this expanded list for more information about how to use it.
Navigating workplaces
Switch to a specific workplace: To switch to a particular workspace, press Ctrl and the number of the workspace, where the first one in the navigation pane is 1, the second one is 2, and so on.
Switch to next workplace: Cycle through each workspace in sequence by pressing Ctrl + Tab.
Switch to the previous workplace: Cycle through each workspace in reverse by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Tab.
Navigating Slack
Open preferences: Press Ctrl + comma (,) to open the Preferences window.
Change focus: Press F6 to cycle through each section of Slack, or press Shift F6 to change the focus among sections in reverse.
Browse direct messages: Press Ctrl + Shift + K to open your complete list of direct messages.
Gallery: Google's music streaming service is about to shut down for good. Here are 20 other Google products that bombed, died, or disappeared. (Business Insider)
Browse channels: Press Ctrl + Shift + L to open the complete list of channels you are a member of.
Jump to a conversation: Press Ctrl + K to open the Jump To dialog box to select a channel, person, or some other part of Slack.
Compose a new message: Press Ctrl + N to start writing a new message.
Open Thread View: Press Ctrl + Shift + T to see a complete list of all threads you're participating in.
Next unread channel or direct message: Press Alt + Shift + Down Arrow to go to the next unread message. Use the same shortcut with the Down Arrow to navigate in the other direction.
Open channel info pane: Press Ctrl + Shift + I to open a pane with information about the current channel or person.
See mentions and reactions: Press Ctrl + Shift + M to see a list of all the activity you mentioned or someone has reacted to you.
List of all people: Press Ctrl + Shift + E for the list of all people in your workspace.
Saved items: Press Ctrl + Shift + S to open the Saved Items pane.
Set status: To set or change your Slack status, press Ctrl + Shift + Y.
Search the current channel or conversation: Press Ctrl + F to open the search dialog box.
Open your previous search: Press Ctrl + G to see a list of previous searches you have conducted.
Navigating unread messages
Move between messages: Use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow to navigate through messages.
Open All Unreads View: Press Ctrl + Shift + A to see all your unread messages.
Mark as unread: To mark a message as unread, press Alt, and then click the message with the mouse.
Working with messages
Edit a message: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press E to edit it.
Add an emoji: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press R to add an emoji.
Open a reply: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press T to write a reply.
Pin or unpin a message: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press P to pin the message. P will also unpin it.
Share a message: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press S to share it with someone on Slack.
Save a message: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press A to save it.
Make a reminder: Make sure the message has focus (F6) and then press M to create a reminder based on the message.
Mark all messages as read: Press Shift + Esc to mark all messages in your workspace as read.
Mark all messages in the channel as read: Press Esc to mark all messages in the current channel as read.
Formatting messages
Edit last message: Press Ctrl + Up Arrow to start editing the last message you posted on the current channel.
Make a new line: Press Shift + Enter to add a new line to a message you are writing.
Select text back to the start of the line: Press Shift + Up Arrow to select all the text from the insertion point back to the start of the line.
Select text to end of the line: Press Shift + Down Arrow to select all the text from the insertion point to the end of the line.
Add an emoji: Press Ctrl + Shift + to open the emoji dialog box for editing the message.
Bold: Press Ctrl + B to bold the selected text.
Italics: Press Ctrl + I to italics the selected text.
Strikethrough: Press Ctrl + Shift + X to strikethrough the selected text.
Quote: Press Ctrl + Shift + 9 to format the selected text as a quote.
Mark As Unread In Messenger
Code: Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C to format the selected text as code.
Numbered list: Press Ctrl + Shift + 7 to format the selected text as a numbered list (also called an ordered list)
Bulleted list: Press Ctrl + Shift + 8 to format the selected text as a bulleted list (also called an unordered list)
Making calls
Slack Mark As Unread
Turn video on and off: Press V to toggle video when in a Slack call.
Turn mute on and off: Press M to toggle audio when in a Slack call.
Mark As Unread Meaning
See invite list: Press A to see who has been invited to the Slack call.
Send an emoji: To send an emoji in a call, press E and then choose the emoji by pressing a number from 1 to 9.
Working with files
Upload a file: Press Ctrl + U and choose where to upload the file from.
Slack Mark Unread Iphone
View downloaded files: Press Ctrl + Shift + J to see a list of all the files you have downloaded from Slack.
Related coverage from Tech Reference:
Mark Message As Unread