7 Ways to Slack Faster

Slack is an easy way for friends, family, and work teams to efficiently chat, share files, and more. These easy keyboard shortcuts help you do it all even more quickly.

The Quick Switcher is one of Slack’s most useful features, especially if you belong to many channels: It lets you hop to any channel or conversation simply by typing part of its name.

The shortcut: Press Command-K to bring up the Quick Switcher, then start typing a channel or person’s name. When the desired item is selected—use the arrow keys to choose among multiple matches—press Return to open it.

Unlike emails, Slack messages aren’t set in stone: You can go back and fix a typo, correct a misstatement, or expand on an idea. (Some companies disable message editing for record retention, or limit how long a message can be edited.)

The shortcut: To edit the most recent message you posted in a channel or conversation, just press the Up Arrow key. This works in both channels and direct-message conversations.

Part of Slack’s appeal is that you can choose to join only those channels that are important to you. But laboriously clicking each channel name in the sidebar to see your messages is a drag. Thankfully, there’s a faster way!

The shortcut: Press Option-Up Arrow or Option-Down Arrow to cycle through your channels, starred conversations, and direct messages. Pro tip: Add the Shift key to these shortcuts to cycle through only conversations with unread messages.

If you belong to multiple workspaces, use Command-Shift-[ and Command-Shift-] to cycle through them; or press Command-1 for the first workspace in your list, Command-2 for the second, and so on.

Sometimes you just want to review a recent conversation. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a back button? There is!

The shortcut: Press Command-[ to jump to the channel or conversation you just visited; press this shortcut repeatedly to step back through your channel and conversation history. (Command-] jumps forward, of course.)

Each time you return to Slack, the app bolds channels with unread messages. But if you don’t need—or have time—to read every message, you can mark channels as read with a few keystrokes.

The shortcut: Press Escape to mark everything in the current channel as read; or mark every channel and direct-message conversation as read by pressing Shift-Escape.

It’s easy to create and participate in group chats in Slack, but if you use the feature a lot, it can also be a pain to find previous chats. Direct Messages view to the rescue!

The shortcut: Press Shift-Command-K to show recent DMs and group conversations, newest on top. Use the arrow keys to select a conversation and press Return to open it.

Pro tip: This view is also the fastest way to create a new group message. Just type the names of the people you want in the group.

Can’t get enough Slack keyboard shortcuts? Press Command-/ to bring up the full list!

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