Slack for Windows (Beta)- Release Notes

Slack 4.1.2-beta1

October 15, 2019

What’s New

We added support for Windows 10 Focus Assist priority list. So now our built-in and Action Center notifications will respect your Focus Assist settings, staying as quiet (or as loud) as you want them to be.
A new menu for the system tray lets you take control of how and when Slack launches on booting up (even, randomly, if you are not signed in to any teams.)

Bug Fixes

Receiving a gif in a notification could mess with your notifications.
Long workspace names now no longer appear as incredibly long in menus.
Slack menus should now be showing up at the right language (meaning the one that is right for you).
Spellchecker stopped working for a small count of users, leading to a shorp uptick in avoidabull erratz. With spellcheck now fully back online for those users, any remaining typos are officially not our fault.
There was a slim chance things weren’t finishing up properly when closing Slack. We’re working on making all this perfect, but in the meantime, it is, at least, better. Restarting when clearing cache now works again.
No longer do you have to ask “Update.exe? What IS that?”: We now show with our actual name (which is “Slack”, for reference) in Startup entries for Taskmanager and Settings.
Slack could go into a state where getting notifications (even if you couldn't see them) would prevent you from clicking on the right side of your monitor… at all. Sorry for any understandable frustration this caused — your notifications (and your ability to use your mouse) are now working as intended again.

Slack 4.1.1-beta1

October 8, 2019

Bug Fixes

We tuned up the engine and gave the interiors a thorough clean. Everything is now running smoothly again.

Slack 4.1.0.beta6

September 26, 2019

Bug Fixes

We tweaked some things too small to notice or too difficult to explain. We’ll return you to your regular, more interesting types of release next time (we hope).

Slack 4.1.0-beta3

September 2, 2019

What’s New

Thanks to a few tweaks to the engine, a polish of the pistons, and recalibrated valves, the app should be running smoother and faster, than before.
Spellcheck, revamped, is now a much better version of its old self (and back on Linux, to boot) — now it supports Greek, Portuguese and British English. So now spelling correctly should come more naturally to us all (which is good, because “correctly” can be a difacult word to spell).

Bug Fixes

For a quicker connection, and less frustration, checking for network connectivity is more reliable than it was before.
After uploading a video into Slack some found it would give an infinite circle of loading, but not play, which was never our plan. Now: it works! It plays; no more circle! Because, it turned out, all circ and no play made Slack a null ‘ploy.

Slack 4.0.2-beta1

July 24, 2019

What’s New

A pesky leak involving in-channel videos has been plugged.

Bug Fixes

It's taken a few tries, but the app should crash less often when connected to an external display.

Slack 4.0.1-beta2

July 18, 2019

Bug Fixes

We’ve tinkered with the internal workings and polished some rough edges. The app is now better than it was.

Slack 4.0.0-beta2

June 18, 2019

What’s New

Slack is now a tiny bit faster all around, thanks to a bunch of little changes that each made a difference for the better.

Bug Fixes

If you like dragging and dropping files, you'll like it even more now we've fixed it.
Resetting the app data, should that be something you need to do, works better.
Icons on the sidebar now line up more pleasingly for those in many workspaces.
Focus assist and presentation mode are now properly honored, as they should have been.
Windows native notifications are now more reliable.
Hardware acceleration can now be turned off without foregrounding Slack. If that means something to you, you'll know that it's good… And if it means nothing to you, it's still good (and thank you for reading anyway).

Slack 3.4.3

June 3, 2019

Bug Fixes

The app was crashing more often than it should have done upon waking. Waking up is hard for all of us, but it shouldn't have been that hard. It now crashes less often than it did, and we're continuing to work toward making that "not at all"

Slack 3.4.2-beta4

May 21, 2019

What’s New

Just as day follows night and winter gives way to spring, so have we updated Electron to 4.2.1

Bug Fixes

The push notification time between desktop and mobile has been changed for the better.
Like stability? Us too. So we tweaked things, and now everything is more stable. In our app.

Slack 3.4.1-beta3

April 18, 2019

Bug Fixes

We’ve tinkered with the internal workings and polished some rough edges. The app is now better than it was.

Slack 3.4.0-beta1

March 28, 2019

Bug Fixes

Interactions with network drives are now handled with grace and panache. Or, at the very least, "better".
If you want to launch slack minimized, you now can. We will no longer stand in your way.
We've changed the look, feel and texture of our new HTML notifications. Give them a try! They're delicious.
Sometimes on Windows 10, moving the window, say, up would cause a white bar to appear. We raised the bar.
Also, moving the window would sometimes change the size of the window. Your aim was true; we no longer move the goalposts on you.
In the Apps and Features and Uninstall a Program window, the icon showing up was not the right one. It now is.
The notification and unread indicators on the taskbar are now more readable.
Blurry icons were an issue for some users with multiple displays. Now all is clear.
The Slack icon, previously appearing with an opaque background color on Windows 10 is now all the clearer for being less clear.
Some people were seeing sidebar icons for teams other than the one they were in. This was confusing, and has now stopped.
And finally, if you have been having issues with keyboard or cursor issues, you should no longer be having them.

Slack 3.3.8

March 4, 2019

Bug Fixes

We’ve made some additional tweaks to our new sign-in and sign-out flows.

Slack 3.3.8-beta1

February 12, 2019

What’s New

When you sign in, you'll now sign in through the browser rather than within the app.

Bug Fixes

We've fixed the tray icon to make the notification badge easier to see, because, let's face it, if you can't see a notification, it's not really doing its job.
Switching from one channel to another will now give the correct name and information of the new one, rather than the old one, as was previously happening.
The new loading animation was a little stretched, or a little squished, depending on how you looked at it. It's now practically perfect.
A few icons in menus went missing on Windows 10, and have now been retrieved.
Occasionally, the "Open the Slack App" browser button was not opening the workspace in the desktop app. Silly, really. It now does.
If you use SSO (Single Sign-on) to log in, it should now work perfectly every time.

Slack 3.3.7

January 16, 2019

What’s New

From today, you'll notice a shiny new app button that matches our new logo. You can read more about it on our blog at SlackHQ.com. Change! Everyone loves it. (Having said that, nothing about Slack or how you use it has changed. Just the button.)

Slack 3.3.4-beta3

December 12, 2018

Bug Fixes

'Paste and Match Style' (Ctrl+Shift+V) was pasting copied text twice. We've fixed that.
'Paste and Match Style' (Ctrl+Shift+V) was pasting copied text twice. We've fixed that. In the app.
Notification sounds were, confoundingly, not playing when they should have been (when, say, you needed notifying about something). The case of the missing notification sounds has been solved.
We've continued to improve how Slack behaves with proxies. If you were having any connectivity issues with the previous beta, you should no longer have them.

Slack 3.3.4-beta2

November 16, 2018

Bug Fixes

A few connectivity issues caused by PAC (proxy auto-configuration) files, are issues no longer. Because we fixed them! Hurrah.

Slack 3.3.4

October 16, 2018

Bug Fixes

Users signing in with Single Sign-On would see the same message twice when logging in. This will not happen any more.
When trying to select a portion of a code-formatted block of text (text formatted with ` or ``` at either end), some characters were proving slippery and hard to select. You can now copy and paste to your heart's content.
Several random, rare crashes — on launch and at other times — have been eliminated. More random and rare crashes inevitably exist, of course, and as soon as we know what they are, we'll eliminate those too.
The full screen shortcut was mistakenly listed as ‘Ctrl+F’ instead of ‘Ctrl+Shift+F’ in the "View" menu. We both apologize for this and hope that, because of it, someone out there discovered 'Ctrl+F' as a useful shortcut for searching the channel that you're in. Always look on the bright side of bugs.

Slack 3.3.3

October 1, 2018

Bug Fixes

All updates are important, of course. This one contains security updates, and as we know, they’re the most important kind of all.

Slack 3.3.0

July 30, 2018

Bug Fixes

Overall stability of the app has been improved, thanks to a clutch of fixes.
It's very, very useful when you report issues to us, so we've improved the diagnostic tools so that when you do, we can better analyze the issues, and, hopefully, fix them for you faster.
Some individuals were getting duplicate notifications due to multiple windows being open simultaneously. We’ve fixed this, so no longer will one message create two notifications.
A slight shift in color profiles in 3.2.0 was causing a flickering between the old and new colors.
When the thing you're downloading has downloaded, we're now better at telling you so.
We’ve made tweaks to the checker of spelling, so it can spell check more reliably. It spells it "check". Or "cheque", if checking in British English. In fact, the spellchecker as a whole now works better than ever.
Links in Slack will now, by default, dependably open in the browser you've chosen as your default browser. Because that's what "default" means! Brilliant.
Live Tiles, which weren’t updating correctly when pinned, now are.
Notifications were preventing you from clicking on surrounding windows. This was unbefitting, and a little needy. Click on whatever you need to click on. Don't let us stop you. You know what you're doing.

Slack 3.2.0

April 26, 2018

What’s New

A plethora of improvements for the people of Enterprise Grid, including faster quick switching, better proxy support, and direct message draft syncing across multiple workspaces (so whichever workspace you started typing that message in, you can finish in another).
You can now right-click on Slack in the taskbar to do useful things like jump to a specific workspace, or move Slack to your current display.

Bug Fixes

Unread badges, which had been being a little inconsistent, have been given a stern talking to, and promise to be more reliable henceforth.
Call loading has been improved, as have other general pieces of call performance.
The workspace sign-in flow has been gently massaged, leading to improved error handling and magic link support.
Copying an email link will now, as you might expect, copy the email link.
A clutch of crufty crashes, as hard to explain as they were annoying to experience, have now been completely corrected.
Sometimes, clicking on an Action Center notification could cause Slack to hang until you clicked on the start menu. Fixed that.
Notifications on Windows 7 machines without graphics acceleration hardware can now be used once again.
We closed first our left eye, then our right, and can confirm that the text in this new version is a little bit sharper for some Windows users.
Applications launched by Slack (when, say, clicking a link) will no longer inherit Slack’s environment variables.

Slack 3.1.1

April 6, 2018

Bug Fixes

We got so excited about your emoji we kept requesting them, particularly at the moment you switched channels. This caused all manner of slowness. We've since bottled our enthusiasm, and now request emoji exactly one (1) time.

Slack 3.1.0

February 15, 2018

What’s New

We’re using a new font for Japanese. It’s clearer, more legible, and goes well with aubergine. (Which is the default color of your sidebar. As well as a vegetable.)
Sometimes Slack takes too long to start up. If that happens, a) we’re sorry that it does, but b) you’ll now see a link with some helpful troubleshooting ideas.
When a file’s done downloading, a new notification will dutifully let you know.
If you’ve asked Slack to launch right when your computer turns on, Slack now does so much more quietly — with less extraneous loading screen action, and fewer fanfares.
For Windows 10 users, we now offer the option to disable hardware acceleration. If you’re seeing glitchy graphics and other unpleasantness, try toggling this option to on.

Bug Fixes

Badges about unread messages would linger on the dock icon, even after said messages had been read. These badges will linger no more.
Slack would occasionally crash when it wasn’t allowed to put files in the Temp folder. Now, it will simply use the Downloads folder, instead.
Some users who clicked on a magic link were not taken to their workspace. We have set our cauldrons to a slow simmer and magic links should now work as expected.
When trying to connect via a proxy, Slack simply refused to load. No longer!
Now you can download a file from Slack, delete it, and then download it again. If that seems like the way the Slack should’ve always worked, well, you aren’t wrong.
Right clicking “something” and choosing “Search with Google” had a tendency to search for “so”, “me”, or “thing.” It will now search for the entire text. So if you really do want to Google “something” (or something else), we’ll have your back.
Images sometimes were appearing in notifications, contrary to the wishes of those who had chosen to hide message previews. This is now fixed, your wishes respected.
Clicking the close, minimize, and maximize buttons would occasionally do nothing at all. You can now close, minimize, or, preferably, maximize Slack.
If you dismiss a tooltip, it will leave promptly and politely.
Previously, Slack would override a system’s TEMP variable. If you know what that means, know now that it is fixed.
Some anti-virus software had become overly suspicious of Slack. We are not a virus, and we’ll do better about letting your anti-virus software know.

Slack 3.0.5

January 18, 2018

Bug Fixes

Another important security update. See? We told you they were all important.

Slack 3.0.3

January 4, 2018

Bug Fixes

On some Windows 7 systems, Slack kept Windows from shutting down without making a fuss. It’ll now let your system shut down in peace.
When Windows had trouble showing your notification, Slack would panic and crash. It’ll stop doing that.
An important security update. Security updates are always important. This is one of those.

Slack 3.0.2

December 19, 2017

Bug Fixes

We undid changes that have been causing some people to occasionally miss notifications with 3.0.0. You will now miss nothing. Unless you want to.
Clicking on and replying to notifications is now also more reliable.

Slack 3.0.0

October 27, 2017

What’s New

When you’re in a lot of workspaces, the app now uses much less memory, and starting up is faster, to boot.
And flipping between those workspaces is now faster. Not super-sonic, but certainly somewhere between a jiffy and lickety-split.
We shunted the sign-in page out of the app — it's now rerouted to a new window, for reasons of reliability.
A new-fangled lock badge subtly lets you know which workspaces you're currently signed out of. Or of which you're currently signed out. Either way.
Our start up screen has been spruced-up and slimmed-down, and is worth something between a passing glance and a darn good gander
…As is the helpful way that dates now stick to the top of a channel while scrolling through messages.
Finally, for the Windows Store folks: say howdy to genuine auto-launch support.

Bug Fixes

It’s been a long time coming but brings us joy to say: There's now 100% less reloading during drag and drop!
Repeated visits to the "Something’s not working" screen? Turns out the main thing not working was that screen. It is no more.
If you kept the app running for a long time, you might be on the receiving end of two consecutive updates. Now things are one-at-a-time, as they should be.
Out of consideration, we scooted the sidebar out of your way when viewing full-screen video.
We fixed your ability to exit — or escape — full-screen video by pressing the aptly-named “Escape” key.
The blackout caused by a window being closed while full-screen, with one request confoundingly eclipsing the other, has been sunsetted.
Found: Missing Ctrl-1 / Cmd-1 hotkey. Please call 1-800-SLACKME to claim. Don't actually call that number. It doesn't do anything. Unlike the hotkey.
Remedied: A crash on Windows 10 when an Action Center notification contained special characters.
Speaking of notifications, we ferreted out a few cases where sounds were not playing or profile images were missing, and righted them.
If you connected a secondary display, then later disconnected it only to find Slack missing offscreen, you’re in luck. This version is less jumpy.

Slack 2.8.0

September 6, 2017

What’s New

Support for a top secret, very hush-hush, highly classified and very exciting new feature that we wish we could call by name, but we cannot.
All mentions of “team” have been changed to “workspace” when referring to the app, though not when referring to the people in it. You create a workspace. You invite people from your team. Simple!
You can now configure the language used by the spellchecker in Preferences to be the language you wish to spell correctly.
You can now configure your delivery method of choice for notifications (built-in, Action Center, Action Center Abbreviated), in addition to being able to configure the position of those notifications (again)

Bug Fixes

Fixed: A few rare crashes when making a call and/or screen sharing on a call are now, we believe, on the brink of extinction - or possibly, we hope, gone forever.
Fixed: An issue where the app would hang if your OS reported that you were in certain timezones
Fixed: You may have been running into a Something's Not Working screen when waking your computer from sleep. Turns out the thing not working was that. So we fixed it.
Fixed: Windows Action Center notifications were bright red for some reason: they are now less red.
Fixed: Notification sounds would sometimes play twice. Notification sounds will no longer play twice.

Slack 2.7.1

August 15, 2017

Bug Fixes

You're nearly finished signing in when suddenly – bonk – you're brought back to the first page. Hey, what gives? Please accept our apologies and, in this version, 100% less bonking.
Ding. Ba-dum tsss. Plink. Boing. Hummus. We know you've been missing all of these sounds, so we wrote them down for you. The app should play them more often now, too.

Slack 2.7.0

July 24, 2017

What’s New

File downloads are now pausable and – in perhaps a master stroke of matchmaking – resumable too.
A bevy of changes to make the app more keyboard navigable.
We’ve adjusted the app icon, but just a skosh. Putting our best foot forward.
Should the worst happen and the app fail to load, you'll see a less dreadful error page and perhaps even a code you can share.

Bug Fixes

On Windows 7, notifications have been made more reliable, at the expense of a preference: you’ll no longer be able to customize their position on-screen.
On Windows 10, we’ve negotiated a truce between notifications and your antivirus. This will keep notifications appearing in a timely manner. They’ll play whatever sound you’ve told them to play more reliably, too.
The team sidebar is no longer touch-challenged. Tap, flick, and drag teams to your heart’s content.
Cancelling a running download is 38% less crashy. For when you decide you didn’t need that third gif after all.
We spliced some wires we shouldn’t have, causing a loading screen to flash briefly after signing into a team. Now it’s as it should be.
Those little white dots in the team sidebar that let you know when you have messages to read? They’re no longer obscured when the app is maximized.

Slack 2.6.3

June 2, 2017

Bug Fixes

Sometimes if you changed networks, we used to rouse from sleep in a bit of a daze, greeting you with a blank screen. Now, we awaken bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Or at the very least, with your team displayed.
Where, in rare cases, some external links didn't end up pointing to the right place when you clicked them, they now do.
Video playback should now be much smoother, and nicer to your network.
On certain keyboard layouts, hitting backspace didn't actually delete the last character, which was a surprise, but a surprise of the lesser kind - there is now one fewer lesser surprise.

Slack 2.6.2

May 17, 2017

Bug Fixes

Unexplainably, context menus and spell-check stopped working in some teams. OK: we have an explanation but we'd rather not discuss it. It's embarrassing. Rest easy knowing that it's fixed here.

Slack 2.6.0

April 20, 2017

What’s New

We revamped video calls, making the experience more intuitive, and more attractive. As a bonus, they're more resource efficient and now let you change audio devices during a call. If that's the kind of thing you need to do.
Remove thine shackles from thine eyes, and behold: gloriously legible text, regardless of your display scaling!
We'll no longer clear notifications from the Action Center automatically, but if you're on the Windows Creators Update we'll bundle them up so that it's easier for you to do.

Bug Fixes

A rare bug that turned Slack into a process hydra: receiving notifications or switching channels would spawn new processes seemingly without end.
The Launch on login preference should be more reliable this time around (for the technically inclined: it now uses the registry instead of a Startup shortcut).
We paved over a series of potholes that were strewn about the app, making crashes far less likely.
Should you ever wish to say goodbye to one of your teams, a right-click > Remove from the sidebar will do the trick now more reliably than before.
Switching teams using the numbered shortcuts is noticeably faster. We would say "37%" if we were forced to put a number on it. Fortunately, we aren't, and we won't.
Opening a context menu won't freeze videos or gifs playing in the app.
We dusted off the cobwebs in the app menu and composted a few menu items that weren't useful when signed into one team.
The default window size is a smidgen larger. You won't notice, because your window will keep being the same size it's always been. That's just the way it is, and we don't want it to change.
Our spellchecker would occasionally mark correctly spelled words as incorrect. It had ONE job. It now performs it.
With surgical precision, we cut out the frame border that appeared when the app window was maximized.

Slack 2.5.2

March 9, 2017

Bug Fixes

We made the act of signing in more reliable for teams using SSO.
For the times when Slack just... doesn't: try Help > Clear Cache and Restart. It has all the nougaty goodness of Reset App Data, without the stale aftertaste of losing your teams.

Slack 2.5.1

February 14, 2017

What’s New

We tried to imagine a centralized location that made it easy to put Slack onto a bunch of Windows computers all at once. Then realised we were imagining the Windows Store. So we put the app in there instead. It made so much more sense. https://slack.com/ssb/download-winstore.
The way we load teams you don’t view often has been changed to improve the memory footprint of the app. One day, it will be a pitter patter of tiny footprints. For now, it’s a tad slower, a little less hefty, and a lot more attractive. Think “brontosaurus in a nice hat.”
Folks consistently unable to load the app will now be greeted by a troubleshooting page that offers suggestions on making their situation better. (Spoiler: it's usually to do with over-zealous antivirus software).
Those pasting text with style into a Post then finding their text to have "no style" can now Paste & Match Style under the Edit menu.
You can see our Help Center documentation in – of all places – the Help menu. The almost over-intuitively named Open Help Center item will be your friend.
Spellcheck support for three (세!) additional languages; writers of Korean, Portugese (Brazilian), and Albanian type a little easier.

Bug Fixes

Fixed: Waking Slack after hibernation or a system crash occasionally found all your teams missing. Thank you for your patience, and sorry for the inconvenience; it no longer should.
Fixed: A rare bug where team icons shuffled out of formation in the sidebar. They're more stoic and sticky and as a bonus, rearranging them is smoother.
Fixed: On Windows, a handful of zoom-based glitches: borders inappropriately sized, taskbars jumping around. All of that? Smoothed.
Fixed: Customers typing in languages that use IME composition (Korean, for example) will find that the message input is 82% stickier.
Fixed: In a truly McGyver maneuver, we applied an additional layer of duct tape around Windows 10 notifications. Literal duct tape. Ask no questions.