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 the channels you are in.

Creating a channel

Only owners and admins can create a channel. Open Channels in your workspace sidebar, then open the channel actions menu (the button beside the channel search) and choose Create channel. The Create Channel dialog asks for a Channel Name, an optional Description, a Private Channel switch ("Only invited members can see this channel"), and, once your workspace has categories to choose from, a Category. A channel name is stored as lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, so typing "Field Ops" creates a channel named "field-ops".

In the mobile app, the plus button on the Channels tab offers New channel and Manage categories. It is rendered only for owners and admins.

A new public channel is created with everyone currently in your organization already in it — every active membership, not only your staff — so on a large membership it is a large channel from its first message. A new private channel starts with only the person who created it, so plan to add the rest from the Members panel straight away.

Sending messages

Type a message in the composer at the bottom of any channel and press Enter to send; Shift+Enter starts a new line instead. The + button at the left of the composer attaches a file, adds an event, or starts a mention.

To format text on a computer, select the words: a small bar appears over them with Bold, Italic, Code and Link. The keyboard works too: Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+E and Ctrl+K (Cmd on a Mac), where Ctrl+K opens a field for the link's address. On any screen, you can type the formatting as you go: **bold**, *italic*, or text between backticks for code.

Sharing photos and files

You can attach up to five files to a message, 10 MB each, and a message can be nothing but attachments. On the web, choose + then Attach a file and browse, paste a file or screenshot directly into the composer, or drag files onto it from your desktop. Thread replies can carry files the same way. In the mobile app, tap the plus button at the left of the composer and choose Take photo, Photo library, or Choose file; what you picked appears above the text field until you send, and you can remove anything with its cross. Photos taken or chosen on your phone are resized before they upload, so a full-size camera shot fits comfortably.

Images render inline, and open in a lightbox on the web or a full-screen viewer in the app when tapped. Other files show their name and size; click to download on the web, or tap to open in the app. Files are stored privately: every link is created on demand for a member of the channel and expires within an hour, so there is no permanent address to share.

On the web, 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 @ followed by their name or handle in the composer and pick them 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: choose + then Add an 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 message needs its own conversation, hover over it and choose Reply in thread; on a phone, choose it from the message actions menu instead. A message with replies shows a small button under it with the number of replies and when the last one came, such as "3 replies 42m ago"; click it to open the thread beside the channel, or full screen on a phone. Replies stay in the thread, so the channel itself stays readable.

A thread looks like the channel it came from: the original message at the top, then the replies. You can react to a reply and use its message actions menu just as in the channel, and a deleted message keeps its replies button, so its thread stays reachable. Close the thread with the cross in its header, or press Escape outside the reply box.

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. On a touch screen the button is always visible. Reactions aggregate below the message as pills carrying the emoji and a count; hover one to see who reacted. Reactions update live for everyone with the channel open.

Editing and deleting messages

On the web, the message actions menu offers Copy text on any message, Pin and Unpin to owners and admins, and Edit and Delete only on messages you sent yourself. The same menu is on every reply in a thread. There is no option there to remove someone else's message, whatever your role.

In the mobile app, owners and admins can delete any message in a channel: press and hold the message and choose Delete. That is the only place a channel message posted by someone else can be removed, so moderating another person's post means reaching for the app.

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. In the mobile app, the bell in the header mutes and unmutes, and Notifications in the channel's settings picks between the three levels. The same control is available in direct messages.

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

Staying oriented

Everything in this section is part of the web app.

Every channel begins with an intro block naming the channel and its purpose, plus an Add people shortcut if you can add members. It is the start of the channel's history, so it is what you see in a brand-new channel and what you land on if you scroll all the way back through a busy one — either way you know you have reached the beginning rather than wondering whether more is still loading.

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. Owners and admins can Pin and Unpin any message from the message actions menu, and everything currently pinned is listed in the Pinned Messages panel, opened with the pin button in the channel header.

To find something specific, open the search panel with the search button in the channel header. It searches the messages in the current channel and returns matches in a side panel. Search covers recent messages rather than the channel's entire history, so for something very old, scrolling back is still the surer route.

Private channels

By default a channel is public: visible and joinable by everyone in your organization. An owner or 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.

In the mobile app, an owner or admin opens the channel's settings and taps Access to choose Public or Private. When the channel is private, the same screen lists who can join: Add people or teams grants access, and the cross beside a name removes it.

Joining, leaving, and being removed

People who join your organization after a channel already exists are not added to it. They join it themselves: Browse all channels, in the channel actions menu, opens Browse Channels ("Find and join channels in your organization"), where the Join button sits beside each channel's name. An owner or admin can also add them.

Owners and admins manage the roster from the Members panel, opened with the members button in the channel header. The Add a member… search adds anyone in your organization, and Remove beside a name takes someone out. Everyone sees Leave beside their own name, whatever their role; confirming it ("Leave this channel? You will stop receiving its messages.") takes you out but leaves what you have already posted in place.

When someone leaves your organization or is removed from it, they are taken out of that organization's channels and can no longer open them. The messages they already sent stay in the channel, so the record of a decision does not develop holes when a person moves on. Their direct messages are not affected, because those belong to the two people in them rather than to a workspace.

Putting a removed person back on the team does not put them back in the channels they were in. They rejoin a public channel from Browse Channels, and an owner or admin adds them back to a private one.

Managing a channel

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

Owners and admins get a settings button (the gear) in the channel header, which opens Channel Settings. From there you can edit the channel's name, description, and category, and set how long its messages are kept (see message retention).

Channels cannot be archived — there is no archived state on the web or in the app. The only end state is Delete channel in Channel Settings, confirmed with a prompt that names the channel: "This permanently removes the channel and all of its messages. This cannot be undone." If a channel has gone quiet but its history still matters, leave it in place and move it into a category you keep at the bottom of the list rather than deleting it.

In the mobile app, the gear in the channel header opens Channel settings for every member:

• Notifications: your level for this channel.
• Members: how many people are in the channel, and the roster. Owners and admins add and remove people from here.
• Access: whether the channel is public or private and, when it is private, who can join.
• Media and files: everything shared in the channel, newest first. Photos are a grid; tap one to view it full screen. Other files are a list; tap one to open it.
• Message retention: how long messages are kept. Forever unless an owner or admin chooses a window, from 24 hours to 1 year.
• Leave channel at the bottom.

Owners and admins also see Delete channel, can change the retention window, and reach Edit channel (name, description, category) by tapping the channel's name at the top of the sheet.

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.