Channels: team chat for your workspace

Channels are your workspace's group messaging tool. They are scoped to your organization, separate from platform-wide direct messages, and designed for the ongoing conversations your staff and organizers need to coordinate. Open Channels in your workspace sidebar to see every channel your team has created.

Sending messages

Type a message in the composer at the bottom of any channel and press Enter to send. Messages support full Markdown formatting. You can attach files three ways: click the attachment button and browse, paste a file or screenshot directly into the composer, or drag files onto it from your desktop — up to five files (10 MB each) upload alongside your message. Images render inline and open in a lightbox when clicked.

Half-written messages are saved automatically as drafts, per conversation. Switch to another channel or close the tab and your draft is waiting when you come back; it clears once the message is sent.

To let someone know you need their attention, type @username in the composer and select from the autocomplete list. The recipient gets an inbox notification. For broader alerts, use @channel to notify all channel members or @here to notify only the members who are currently online. All mention types render as styled chips inside the message.

You can also drop a live event into the conversation: select Add event in the composer and pick from your upcoming events. It posts as a card with an RSVP toggle and a link to the event, and always reflects the event's current RSVP count rather than a snapshot from when it was posted.

Threads and reactions

When a conversation inside a channel needs its own space, click the reply count link ("N replies") on any message to open the thread panel on the right side. Replies in a thread stay organized separately from the main channel, keeping the primary feed readable.

To react to a message, hover over it to reveal the react button in the toolbar, then choose an emoji from the quick-reaction picker. Reactions aggregate below the message showing the emoji, a count, and who reacted. Reactions update live across all connected clients.

Notifications and quiet channels

Click the bell in the channel header to choose how a channel notifies you: All messages (every message), Mentions only (the default — only @-mentions), or Muted (no notifications at all; the unread badge still counts). Muting wins over every mention type, including @channel and @here. The same control is available in direct messages.

While someone is writing, a subtle "is typing…" line appears above the composer, so you know a reply is on the way.

Staying oriented

When you open a channel with unread activity, a NEW line marks where you left off and the view lands there instead of jumping to the bottom. Returning to a channel you've already caught up on restores your previous scroll position. Unread badges in the sidebar update within moments of a message arriving.

Read receipts appear as small member avatars under the last message you sent, letting you know who has seen it.

Pinned messages keep important information easy to find. Channel admins can pin or unpin any message from the hover menu. To browse everything pinned in a channel, click the Pins panel button in the channel header.

To find something specific, open the Search panel from the channel header. It runs a full-text search scoped to the current channel and returns matching messages in a third-column panel.

Private channels

By default a channel is public: visible and joinable by everyone in your organization. A channel admin can switch it to private from the channel's Settings, restricting it to only the people and teams explicitly granted access. Granting a team access makes every member of that team eligible to see and self-join the channel; it doesn't add them as members automatically. Making an existing public channel private does not remove anyone already in it, and revoking a grant later doesn't remove members who already joined — it only stops new people from joining through that grant.

Managing a channel

For creating, renaming, reordering, and deleting channel categories, see Channel categories.

Channel members are managed from the Members panel (click Members in the channel header). Admins can search for org members and add them, or remove existing members. Any member can leave a channel themselves at any time.

Channel admins have access to the Settings button in the header. From there you can edit the channel's name, description, and category. You can also delete the channel entirely. Deletion is permanent: all messages, reactions, and attachments associated with the channel are removed.

Why this matters

Keeping team conversations inside channels rather than scattered across personal inboxes or external tools means nothing gets lost and everyone with access can catch up. Threads prevent side discussions from drowning the main feed, categories keep a growing list of channels navigable, and pinned messages make standing information (recurring meeting links, key contacts) survive the scroll.