When you need time for uninterrupted work, turn on focus mode to minimize distractions. Focus mode quiets your Slack experience by reducing bolding and badging in the sidebar and pausing your notifications. You can customize how long it lasts and how it handles notifications from VIPs so you can get things done without missing what's important.
What to expect when focus mode is on
Your Slack theme will change to grayscale, so badges no longer appear in red (or your theme color).
New activity in channels, direct messages, and sidebar tabs will be marked by a subtle dot instead of a numbered badge, and conversation names in the sidebar won’t be bolded. Hover over conversation names or tabs in the sidebar to see your total notification count.
Notification sounds (except those from VIPs if that setting is enabled) will pause.
Your status will update to In focus mode, but you can change it if you’d like.
Turn focus mode on or off
From Slack on desktop, click focus mode in the sidebar. Your Slack theme will automatically update to grayscale.
Click focus mode again to turn off focus mode.
Manage notifications
With focus mode turned on, hover over the focus mode icon.
Check or uncheck the box next to Continue to get notifications from VIPs.
Choose how long focus mode lasts
With focus mode turned on, hover over the focus mode icon.
Under Duration, choose how long you want to remain in focus mode: 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours. Select Don’t turn off to stay in focus mode indefinitely.
Manage automatic status preference
When you’re in focus mode, your status will update automatically to let people know your responses might be delayed (if you already have a status set, Slack won’t change it). You can turn this off in your preferences.
Click your profile picture in the sidebar.
Select Preferences.
Under Automatic statuses, check or uncheck the box next to In focus modewhile in focus mode.
