In Slack, teamwork and communication happen in channels. When you organise conversations in channels, it helps bring the right people together to share ideas, make decisions and move work forward. Read on to learn all about how to create, join and work in channels.

All about channels

• Channels can be organised by team, project or whatever else is relevant to you.
• People can join and leave channels as needed.
• Threads allow for focused and organised side-conversations within channels.

Create channels

Channels can be organised around anything, and unlike siloed email threads or virtual meetings, they make it easy to collaborate across locations and time zones. A workspace can have as many channels as needed, and they're available for all subscriptions.

 Public channels

• They're open for all members of a workspace to join, and anything posted is searchable by others. Everyone gets a collective, shared view of a project’s information, team and conversations. 

• By default, all members (but not guests) can create public channels. Workspace owners can limit channel creation to certain roles if they like.

 Private channels

• They're for discussions that shouldn’t be open to all members, so you must be invited to join one to view it in Slack.
• By default, all members (including some guests) can create private channels. Workspace owners can limit channel creation to certain roles if they like.

  Multi-workspace channels

• Multi-workspace channels connect separate workspaces within an Enterprise Grid organisation.
• Multi-workspace channels can be public or private.
• Org owners and admins can create multi-workspace channels within their organisation, and give members permission to do this if they like.

Tip: By default, all members (but not guests) can send and accept invitations to work with people from other companies in a channel using Slack Connect.

Join channels

How members join a channel depends on the type of channel it is.

 Public channels

• Members can browse and join any public channel in their workspace(s).

 Private channels

• Members must be invited to join a private channel.

  Multi-workspace channels

• Whether the channel is public or private determines how members can join.

Use channels

While a workspace can have as many channels as needed, Slack works best when channel guidelines are in place, and certain best practices are followed.

Guidelines

• Every channel should have a clear topic and description.
• All channels in a workspace should follow established naming guidelines.
• Use threads to keep conversations organised.

Best practices

• Transparency matters, so most conversations should happen in public channels so that they’re searchable by all members. Don’t worry – members can set channel-specific notifications and choose when to get notified or mute activity altogether.
• Maintenance is important: Archive unused channels when they’re no longer needed, or delete them entirely if you don’t want to preserve their history.
• Manage who can post with spaces dedicated to announcements, reviewing support tickets or showcasing your team's work. 
• If the nature of a channel changes, it can be converted from public to private, but not vice versa. For privacy reasons, private channels cannot be made public.